Fallout - Chapter 142: For the Institute (Patreon)

C.I.T. ruins.

On the open ground in front of the ruined C.I.T. main building, the Institute’s Coursers and a large contingent of First- and Second-Generation Synths were rapidly forming ranks.

They gathered behind a partially collapsed electromechanical building on the north side of the ruins.

The Institute was unable to deploy forces to the surface of C.I.T. via wireless teleportation. The Enclave had locked down all drop zones for beaconless teleportation.

Every attempt at wireless teleportation yielded the same result. The signal was redirected before it reached the surface.

But they still had a wired teleportation channel.

This channel did not rely on quantum positioning. It ran along pre-War power cables laid beneath the C.I.T. ruins, connecting directly from the Institute’s teleportation room to the electrical distribution room in the electromechanical building.

Synths poured out of the distribution room one after another, quickly forming ranks in the shadow of the electromechanical building.

Their movements were precise and silent, with no unnecessary shouts and no signals from a commander. Every Synth knew exactly where to stand and when to stop moving.

Pale blue optical camouflage flickered intermittently among the crowd. It was the Coursers repeatedly calibrating their Stealth Boys.

But even if half of them were invisible, X6-88 knew this battle would be extremely difficult.

He crouched behind a collapsed section of low concrete wall, holding military-grade electronic binoculars and observing the Brotherhood of Steel’s formation in the distance through a crack in the wall.

An entire platoon. Thirty-six suits of T-60 power armor.

The silver-gray paintwork cast a dull metallic sheen in the afternoon sunlight.

Twelve units in the front row, armed with heavy weapons, including rotary machine guns, Gatling lasers, and two missile launchers.

Twelve units in the middle row, using tanks for cover, were responsible for mid-range fire suppression and area containment. The blind spots between adjacent units were completely filled by their crisscrossing fire.

The twelve in the rear formed a sentry line. Their field of view covered all approach routes across the entire battlefield, weaving an impenetrable net behind the formation.

And at the core of the formation stood the laser excavator mounted on that tank.

Its focusing lens array, made of giant crystals over a meter in diameter, was slowly adjusting its angle in the sunlight, casting a rainbow-like halo.

X6-88 lowered his binoculars.

He looked down at the Institute-issue laser rifle in his hands, the standard blue-beam model.

Effective range: approximately two hundred meters.

As for armor-piercing capability, it was essentially negligible.

He ran a quick calculation in his head: if he set the rifle to maximum power and fired continuously at the exact same spot on a single chest armor plate, it would take about seven seconds of sustained fire to burn through the coating on the enemy’s armor.

And during those seven seconds, the enemy had at least eight heavy weapons capable of turning him, along with everything within five meters of him, into Swiss cheese.

He glanced again at the synths behind him, all armed with standard-issue weapons. They were lined up in four ranks, their postures so uniform they looked as if they’d been pressed from the same mold.

“Damn.”

This was from one of his surface missions. While he was providing cover for a Human guide crossing through Gunner territory, the guide had blurted out that curse after they were ambushed.

At the time, X6-88 had noted down the word and filed it under the category “colloquial labels used by Humans to express evaluative judgments under extreme pressure.”

Now, the word slipped involuntarily from his lips.

How were they supposed to fight this?

Across from them: thirty-six sets of heavy armor. Two main battle tanks. A giant laser cannon capable of drilling through 200 meters of rock underground.

And on their side, nothing but a numerical advantage.

But numbers are merely a variable that prolongs the slaughter a little. They won’t change the outcome; they’ll only alter the duration of the process.

Various strategies flashed through X6-88’s mind: surprise attacks, flanking maneuvers, dispersed infiltration, and wave-based assaults.

He tried twelve different troop allocation ratios and even simulated a decoy tactic where one wave would feign retreat across open ground to lure the enemy into pursuit before turning to counterattack. But every simulation led to the same conclusion.

They had no chance of crossing that open field to get close to the laser.

X6-88 was about to settle on a plan that would “result in the highest casualties but at least offer a chance to get close to the excavator”: sacrificing 99 percent of the Synths as cannon fodder to draw fire, while he himself, carrying a bomb, would use stealth to slip around the flank and approach the laser.

A notification came over the communications channel.

“Attention. Prepare to receive experimental power armor suits.”

X6-88’s eyes lit up.

Power armor.

The Institute was finally willing to release those prototype power armor suits. He knew the Institute had previously worked on a power armor project. It was later abandoned due to cost issues.

X6-88 immediately turned and rushed back to the power distribution room.

A blue light flared from the teleportation system, brighter than the usual teleportation glow. It was the intense luminosity produced when a high-mass object was teleported.

The blue light faded.

A power armor suit appeared on the teleportation platform.

The main body was milky white, with the chest, abdomen, forearms, and thighs covered in deep red armor plates. The red-and-white color scheme made the design highly distinctive; it could be recognized at a glance even against a backdrop of ruins and rubble.

But what caught X6-88’s attention wasn’t its color scheme. It was its shape.

Three rows of cooling fins ran along the exterior, with a thin layer of dust accumulated between them, indicating that the power armor had been sitting idle in an underground hangar for some time before being transported.

The torso was broader and thicker than that of a standard power armor suit. Based on a visual estimate, X6-88 calculated that the power armor’s chest cavity volume was at least twice that of the T-60 power armor.

However, there was no helmet, nor was there a neck interface designed to accommodate the pilot’s head. The entire upper body of the power armor was a neat, rounded rectangle.

From the very beginning, this power armor was designed with no intention of having the wearer don a helmet.

The design philosophy was simple:

No need to put it on or take it off.

No need to consider the comfort of a Human pilot.

Simply detach the synth’s head and move it into the chest cavity. Then reinforce the chest armor. That way, there’s no need to worry about getting your head blown off by a Gauss weapon.

The Institute did, however, show a bit of compassion on this point. They allowed synths to remove the chest plate so their “face” could get some fresh air, if you could call it that.

X6-88 walked toward the power armor.

He had already begun reassessing his previous tactical plan. If this power armor served as the vanguard, combined with short-range dashes under Stealth Boy camouflage…

He walked up to the power armor.

The power armor showed no reaction.

No startup chime. No hydraulic sounds during joint pre-checks. No whoosh of airflow from spinning cooling fans. It was as silent as a corpse.

He reached out, just as he was about to touch the power armor’s shoulder.

A smell of burning.

Not the scent of grinding metal, nor the acrid, charred odor of overloaded electronics. It was the mingled scent of fat and muscle tissue carbonizing under intense heat.

X6-88’s hand froze mid-air.

He slowly circled around to the back of the power armor.

Then he saw it.

The entire back of the power armor had melted.

Charred slag dripped from the edges of the shattered armor plates like tears of solidified wax.

He did the math. The temperature must have reached at least 3,200 degrees Celsius for these materials to melt into this shape in such a short time.

X6-88’s fingers touched the power armor’s shoulder armor.

The power armor fell backward, stiff as a board.

With a crash.

It slammed into the ground in front of the transport platform, kicking up a cloud of grayish-white dust. It lay on its back, chest up. The detachable chest plate had also fallen off.

The human head mounted inside was now exposed, burned beyond recognition. It lay shriveled in the black cavity of the power armor’s chest, like a charred walnut.

X6-88 stood where he was.

He looked at the power armor, at the charred remains of a Synth, once just like him, inside that hollow cavity.

The communication channel sounded again.

“The Institute has been breached. Return immediately to provide reinforcements.”

X6-88 immediately issued a teleportation request.

The system responded. The teleportation channel was established. Quantum perturbation began. He could feel the teleportation field enveloping his body. That familiar sensation, as if countless ultra-fine threads were pulling him at once, began to spread from his limbs toward his torso.

Then it dissipated. The teleportation field collapsed just as it was about to lock in completely.

X6-88 stood beside the experimental power armor carrying the charred corpse of a Synth. He stood at the edge of the open field, its shadows cast by thirty-six T-60 power armor suits and two tanks.

He realized it. The Institute was finished.

X6-88’s gaze darkened for a full two seconds.

Then, it brightened again.

He turned to face the Synths lining up in the shadows of the electromechanical building. They watched him silently, awaiting his next command. Their gun barrels remained pointed at the ground, their stances still impeccably standard.

They didn’t know what had happened. Perhaps some of them had already guessed, but they were still waiting.

X6-88’s voice came over the communication channel, as still as stagnant water.

“All units, proceed as planned.”

He paused.

“For the Institute.”

He didn’t look at anyone. He simply faced the open field, marking every enemy unit in his field of view one by one.

Then he took the first step.

...

Meanwhile, inside the Institute.

The teleportation chamber.

A heavy pipeline access door had been blown open from the inside.

Before the smoke and dust had even cleared, the first figure burst out from behind the door.

A T-51 Power Armor suit, silver-gray and caked with sewer sludge and rust. That sludge had hardened into a crust in the crevices of the armor plates, constantly cracking and flaking off as the power armor moved at high speed.

It was Danse.

The moment he burst through the access door, the Gatling laser gun in his hand had already begun preheating.

There were six Synths in the teleportation chamber.

The six barrels of the Gatling laser gun began to rotate. They swept a fan-shaped swath of intense heat across the teleportation chamber.

Red beams poured down like a torrential rain over the open area; anything exposed in their path was instantly sliced, pierced, and vaporized.

In less than four seconds, six pools of twisted, steaming wreckage appeared on the floor of the teleportation chamber.

Immediately afterward, a second and third power armor suit surged out of the cooling pipelines.

As soon as they burst through the maintenance door, they spread out to both sides, taking up advantageous positions at wall corners, doorposts, and equipment bases, their muzzles trained on every possible entrance.

The Institute’s teleportation chamber had been overrun.

But Danse did not order a halt.

“Keep moving forward.”

His voice rang out over the squad channel.

The walls on either side of the corridor were made of light gray composite panels, with a recessed circular wall sconce every ten meters, casting a soft, even light that created a gentle atmosphere deliberately designed by the Institute to help its residents forget they were living 200 meters underground.

But now, those soft lights shone on the T-51 Power Armor’s silver-gray armor plates and the rotating barrels of the Gatling laser gun, and suddenly, the gentle glow became blinding.

The ensuing battle resembled a massacre.

It wasn’t that the Institute’s Synths lacked courage. They did indeed attempt to mount a counterattack. They set up makeshift defenses at the corners of the corridors, mounted automatic turrets in the foyer leading to the atrium, and established sniper positions above the elevator shafts.

With the Institute’s characteristic efficiency, they rapidly deployed defensive forces, completely sealing off the central section of the main corridor within fifteen minutes.

But against twenty suits of power armor, none of this mattered.

The Institute’s standard-issue laser rifles left only shallow scorch marks on the T-51 Power Armor’s armor.

The layout of the Institute’s underground spaces, with narrow corridors, enclosed rooms, and low doorways, limited the Synths’ numerical advantage while allowing the power armor’s heavy protection to be exploited to the fullest.

The Synths were unable to flank the power armor in the corridors; they could only confront those slowly advancing metal behemoths head-on.

Danse encountered six automatic turrets at the first line of defense in the central corridor. The turrets were mounted at the corners of the corridor’s bend, and their crossfire covered the entire straight section leading up to the turn.

He simply shifted to the side, using the reinforced armor plate on his left shoulder to absorb the turrets’ fire, then raised his Gatling laser, aimed at their positions, and pulled the trigger.

Six seconds later, all six turrets had been reduced to molten metal scrap. The wall at the corridor’s bend was scorched by the Gatling laser’s intense heat, leaving six inward-caved charred pits, their bottoms glowing with dark red residual heat.

There was nowhere to flank. Nowhere to encircle. Nowhere to create distance for guerrilla tactics.

In this bunker-style fight between power armor and infantry, the outcome had been decided from the very beginning.

Danse advanced along the main corridor all the way to the foyer leading to the atrium. His armor was already splattered with black synthetic lubricant and a small amount of bright red blood. It stood out starkly against the silver-gray armor.

“Kyle.”

He called out over the squad channel.

“Captain.”

Danse retrieved three items from the storage compartment at his waist and handed them to Kyle.

The first was a photograph. It showed a young woman with light brown hair and a gentle face, smiling slightly. The edges of the photo were slightly worn, and several creases had turned white. It had clearly been kept for many years. On the back, a line of handwritten ink was faded to a pale brown but still legible: “Nora, Spring 2077.”

The second item was a scent tracker. Palm-sized, with a silver-gray metal casing, it had an air intake grille on the side and a set of indicator lights on top. It could track and lock onto a target over short distances using scent samples, with an error margin of no more than ten meters.

The third item was a small bag of dried herbs. They were a variety unique to the area around Sanctuary Hills, with a distinctive scent, rich but not overpowering.

Danse lowered his voice, making sure only Kyle could hear him.

“Use this scent tracker to follow the scent of the herbs. Find the woman in the photo and bring her back.”

Kyle looked down at the photo in his hand.

“What’s this?”

“It’s a bit complicated. You can think of her as one of Nate’s relatives.”

Kyle’s breath caught for a moment.

He looked at the woman in the photo, then at Danse, and asked no further questions.

He simply stowed the item carefully in the storage pouch at his waist, then turned and signaled to three men. Their footsteps gradually faded down the hallway.

Danse watched them leave.

Then he turned, facing the direction of the atrium.

There, the Institute’s lights were still on, but the corridors bathed in that light were already littered with the remains of Synths. The air was thick with the smell of scorched metal, along with a faint whiff of blood.

“The rest of you, get ready to fight. Don’t let even a single fly get through.”

...

Institute Residential Area.

In the corridors of the residential area, the lighting system was still functioning normally. The light from the ceiling fixtures was soft and even, unlike the noticeably dimmer lighting in the atrium and research areas. This area seemed to have been spared the effects of the “power rationing” so far.

Inside a cozy, simply furnished living room were pale beige walls, a soft light-gray sofa, and a potted synthetic plant in the corner.

The leaves were an almost unreal shade of green, but under the Institute’s lighting, they looked indistinguishable from the real thing. A small round mirror hung on the wall opposite the sofa; its frosted stainless-steel frame reflected most angles of the room.

Nora sat on the sofa.

She didn’t look like a prisoner.

No shackles. No guards.

The living room door wasn’t even closed all the way; it was left ajar. Through the crack, one could see the beige carpet in the hallway and a sconce on the opposite wall.

The sconces were glowing normally, their light steady and flicker-free.

A boy of about ten, with black hair and wearing a dark blue outfit, ran past the living room doorway and then ran back.

He leaned halfway through the doorway, one hand resting on the doorframe, his fingers leaving a small, sweaty mark on the white trim.

“Aunt Nora, have you seen my holotape?”

His voice was clear and lively, like all boys his age, with an innocence that showed he had absolutely no concept of what “danger” meant.

His cheeks were rosy, and a thin sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead. He’d clearly been running back and forth between the living room and his bedroom several times already. His light brown eyes sparkled as he looked at Nora.

Nora looked up and smiled gently.

“It’s on the second shelf of the bookcase. You put it there after you finished watching it last time.”

“Oh.”

The boy’s voice trailed off, then his head darted back, and his footsteps scurried away.

The sound moved down the hallway toward the living room, followed by the rustling of something being rummaged through, and then a cheer.

“I found it!”

Nora’s gaze followed the tiny figure that had vanished into the doorway, lingering for a few seconds.

Then.

She lowered her head and looked at her hands folded in her lap. She couldn’t help but marvel.

“Such young hands.”

The room was quiet.

So quiet that she could hear the low, steady white noise coming from the ventilation pipeline at the end of the hallway, as if something were approaching.

In the distance, there was a faint, muffled thud, as if something heavy had fallen to the floor.

…

Quick update: Since we’re close to catching up with the raw chapters, I’ll be reducing updates from one chapter a day to one every two days. Once we have a comfortable buffer again, I’ll return to daily updates. Thanks for your patience!