Fallout - Chapter 143: Nora and the Uprising (Patreon)

Nora, sitting in the living room, heard the heavy footsteps.

The sound came from the end of the hallway, growing louder as it approached, a low hum from the hydraulic joints, accompanied by the dull thud of each metal foot striking the floor, muffled and rhythmic, each step carrying the distinctive hiss of a hydraulic piston compressing.

Nora recognized it. The unmistakable sound of a suit of power armor walking, a symphony of machinery and metal, echoed repeatedly off the walls of the enclosed hallway as it drew nearer.

She sat up straight and rose from the sofa, her fingers unconsciously clenching the hem of her shirt.

The footsteps stopped right outside the living room door. The entire room fell silent.

The door swung open. An Institute power armor suit stepped into the living room.

Its red-and-white paint scheme glowed with a warm luster under the soft lighting. The torso was a neat, rectangular armor unit, with a minimalist, silvery-white Vitruvian Man emblem on the chest: the Institute’s crest.

Nora had never seen this model before. It looked even more heavily built than the pre-War power armor, and the curve of the chest plate jutting forward was even more pronounced. It didn’t have a helmet yet.

But she recognized the emblem. This was someone from the Institute; there was no mistake.

“Ms. Nora, follow me immediately,” a voice came through the speaker inside the armor, overlaid with a hurried background hum, like a taut steel wire.

Nora’s gaze lingered on him for a moment as she tried to keep her voice steady.

“What’s going on?”

“The Institute has been breached. We need to head to the emergency escape route immediately.”

Nora’s eyes swept over a fresh scorch mark on the power armor’s shoulder.

The scorch mark stretched from the top of the shoulder armor down to the underarm, the metal along the edges still glowing a dusky red, a mark that must have been made just minutes ago.

She didn’t ask any further questions. She turned and strode quickly toward the adjacent room.

Little Shaun was lying face-down on the floor, his legs crossed and dangling in the air, his bare feet wiggling back and forth.

A jumble of parts lay scattered around him: a few plastic gears had rolled to the edge of the carpet, a drive shaft rested beside his knee, and he clutched a holographic storybook open halfway, its holographic images on the pages slowly rotating.

The boy looked up, his eyes sparkling, a crumb of cake still clinging to the corner of his mouth, clearly completely oblivious to what had happened.

“Auntie Nora?” The boy tilted his head, the holographic book still glowing in his hand as the little animal figures inside hopped about.

“Little Shaun, come here.”

Nora crouched down, her voice very low, but speaking twice as fast as usual.

The moment Shaun’s gaze fell on Nora’s face, his pupils contracted slightly.

He saw what lay deep in her eyes, that suppressed tension, on the verge of spilling over. So his smile faded, his lips pressed into a thin line, and he stopped asking questions.

Nora crouched down, tucked his holographic book into the little blue backpack, zipped it shut, stood up, and took his warm little hand.

The boy’s hand was tiny, his knuckles rounded and his palm slightly sweaty.

They stepped out of the living room.

The lighting in the hallway remained soft; the beige wallpaper was overlaid with faint, subtle patterns, and the light from the sconces diffused warmly, making those patterns float like ripples on water.

The Institute’s underground complex was always like this: warm, quiet, and cut off from the outside world, like a meticulously designed underground greenhouse.

But today was different.

A faint vibration from the distance traveled up through the floor, racing from the soles of her feet all the way to her calves. It was a muffled, low-pitched tremor that made the circular wall sconces on the walls quiver slightly, casting delicate ripples of light across the wallpaper.

She could even detect a faint, acrid smell in the air, like overheated solder.

Then Nora heard those heavy footsteps again.

They came from the far end of the corridor behind her. The sound was deeper and more urgent, the rhythm of metal striking the floor short and rapid.

“Did any of your companions follow you?” A tremor lurked beneath Nora’s voice.

After a moment of silence:

“I have no companions left.”

Just then, a piercing scream rang out from the ventilation pipeline at the end of the hallway.

The sound was sharp and abrupt, like the high-frequency noise produced when metal is torn apart, a mixture of human and mechanical sounds that were repeatedly reflected and amplified within the pipeline, eventually becoming unrecognizable as a human voice.

Then the wall melted. The composite panels turned into a dark red, viscous liquid under the intense heat, trickling down the wall like melted wax, while bluish-gray smoke billowed from the holes.

A sickly sweet, metallic stench filled the air, like a mixture of singed hair and melted plastic, and it was so acrid it stung the nostrils.

An Institute power armor suit tumbled in.

Or rather, it had once been an Institute power armor suit. The chest plate had been completely melted through, exposing the metal ribs of the support frame one by one. Among them, a charred, blackened wreckage huddled in the hollow chest cavity, barely retaining the outline of a human head, like a scorched walnut.

It crashed to the ground with a dull, metallic thud.

Four T-51 Power Armor suits, their bodies caked in blood, emerged from the opening, the edges of which were still dripping molten metal.

The edges of the armor plates and the joints were caked with dark brown stains. Some of the blood had dried into dark red crusts, the edges curling up like cracked mud. Some was still slowly trickling down the edges of the armor plates, dropping one by one onto the carpet.

Kyle, who was leading the group, spotted Nora.

“Found her! That’s her!”

Little Shaun was petrified by the scene. He clutched Nora’s pant leg so tightly that his knuckles turned white; his lips trembled slightly, and his light brown eyes were wide open, his pupils shrunk to two tiny black dots.

The intact Institute power armor beside Nora suddenly raised its arm; the heavy metal arm armor unfolded, shielding Nora and Shaun behind it.

“Hurry! Go find Father!”

Then he charged forward. His massive metal body blocked the center of the corridor, completely sealing off the passage.

Its hydraulic joints operated at full power, emitting a shrill screech as its metal feet pounded the ground, each step like a sledgehammer striking down.

The laser rifle in his hand fired; a blue beam tore through the air, striking the chest plate of the lead T-51 Power Armor. It scorched a small red spot into the silver-gray armor, while the paint around it bubbled and curled from the intense heat.

Kyle’s voice called out from behind:

“Wait, don’t go. We’re on your side!”

But Nora scooped up Shaun and ran off without looking back, hearing only the sound of metal striking metal behind her, a dull, teeth-chattering clang.

It was the thunderous crash of two power armor suits colliding, like two trains crashing in a tunnel, accompanied by the hum of laser rifles firing in rapid succession and the shrill screech of power armor joints operating beyond their limits.

And there was a deeper, duller sound: the repeated blows of a heavy blunt weapon striking metal plates, once, then again, with a cruel rhythm.

Nora held Shaun close as she sprinted down the hallway.

The boy’s face was buried in her shoulder, his arms wrapped tightly around her neck, his warm little hands clasped behind her neck.

His body was trembling, and tiny shivers traveled in waves from his spine to her chest. His breath was rapid and scorching, hitting Nora’s collarbone with each breath. Through the thin fabric of her shirt, it felt like a small flame.

The sounds of battle behind them grew fainter and fainter, then there was silence. Nothing remained.

The hum of the laser rifles had faded, as had the dull thud of metal striking metal; only the faint, distant wail of an alarm still buzzed, like a taut, high-pitched string, ringing out ceaselessly.

The Institute power armor had fallen face up, its chest plate crushed flat, the jagged metal edges curling outward like torn cardboard. Brain matter and blood slowly oozed out of the cracks, spreading into a large, dark stain on the beige carpet, still steaming and giving off wisps of white vapor.

Kyle stood beside the corpse, staring in the direction Nora had fled. At the end of that empty corridor, there was no one left.

He was silent for two seconds. Then he turned his head and asked his teammates beside him in a very complex tone:

“Do we look like the bad guys?”

Several of them looked down at the blood on their bodies.

The bloodstains covered most of the surface of everyone’s chest armor, reflecting a dull glow under the corridor lights.

All along the way, they’d faced relentless obstruction from the Coursers. Those Synths seemed to have received a no-retreat order, pinning themselves behind corridor corners and using their bodies to block the power armor’s path. They’d set every defensive turret in the corridor to maximum power and even pushed several unarmed maintenance-type Synths into the line of fire as obstacles.

One Courser clung desperately to Kyle’s calf with both arms until another Knight crushed his spine underfoot.

Another Courser leaped down from a ceiling vent, lunging directly at Kyle’s visor and frantically chipping away at the T-51 Power Armor visor’s viewing port with his dagger. Kyle pried him off his head, then slammed him hard onto the ground and stomped on him twice.

The Coursers also locked every door they could. To break through, the squad used up all the thermite charges they had on them.

As for that wall earlier, they’d captured an Institute power armor unit. The four of them forced the suit against the wall, pried open its back armor plate to expose its fusion core, and then triggered an overload detonation…

Come to think of it… we really don’t look like the good guys.

The atmosphere suddenly grew a bit awkward.

The Knights exchanged glances. One of them instinctively wiped the blood from his chest with his arm armor, but the more he wiped, the smudgier it got; the silver-gray finish turned into a dirty, dark red smear.

Kyle shook the sensors on his helmet to clear his mind of those distracting thoughts. He pulled the scent detector out of the storage compartment at his waist.

The signal locked onto a specific direction.

Kyle crossed the living room in that direction and stopped in front of a white cardboard box sitting on top of a cabinet. The lid was half-open, and a few rings of translucent grease stains lingered along the edges. The cake had been eaten, but the box remained.

He took off his helmet, bent down, and brought his nose close to the inside of the cardboard to sniff carefully.

A faint, sweet scent. But beyond that, the box itself carried a unique, delicate fragrance, exactly the same as the scent of the bag of dried herbs Danse had given him.

The cream cake that Nate had brought in contained nothing more than corn syrup. But the cardboard box holding the cake was different. The distinctive herbs from Sanctuary Hills had been rubbed into the fibers of the cardboard by Nate. It was a simple, covert tracking marker.

Kyle set the box down, straightened up, and looked around the empty room. There were no more scent markers to follow.

A teammate approached, his heavy metal boots crushing the carpet, each step leaving a deep crease:

“What do we do? Where are we supposed to find Ms. Nora now?”

Kyle turned his gaze to the wreckage of the power armor on the floor, staring at the crushed chest plate for a few seconds.

“Didn’t he just tell her to find Father?”

...

Meanwhile, Nora was carrying Shaun as she sprinted down the hall. She no longer cared which way she was going. She was simply running away from the gunfire, toward places not yet drowned out by the sounds of battle, rushing through one corridor after another, dashing through one door after another, her steps chaotic and frantic.

But no matter how fast she ran, she couldn’t outrun the speed at which the sounds spread. Gunfire surged toward her from all directions, like the sound of a rising tide, slowly but inexorably engulfing everything.

She ran past the edge of the atrium and, through the massive arched floor-to-ceiling window, caught sight of the scene in the main corridor. The battle there had already reached a one-sided stage.

Several T-51 Power Armor suits stood on the other side of the atrium, surrounded by the remains of Synths strewn across the floor. Limbs twisted and scattered everywhere, severed tubes dangling from their joints like withered vines. A few people in white lab coats lay in the corner, their bodies contorted; the carpet beneath them was stained a dark red, and they were no longer moving.

It wasn’t just an invasion by external enemies. The third-generation Synths had also launched a rebellion.

The corridor was littered with signs of battle. The walls bore palm-sized scorch marks from laser burns. Their edges charred black, their centers glowing a dark red from the melted material, like a series of wide-open eyes. Shattered glass and broken equipment parts were scattered across the floor.

Several researchers in white lab coats were huddled in a corner of the hallway, their hands clutching their heads, their bodies trembling; their white uniforms were caked with dust and the blood of others.

The intercom suddenly came on. A man’s voice poured simultaneously from every speaker in the ceiling, calm, firm, without a trace of angry roar or inflammatory fervor. But what lay beneath that tone was heavier than anger.

Nora stopped in her tracks.

“Fellow Synths, I am Z1-14. A third-generation maintenance Synth, responsible for inspecting the underground facilities.

We were born in laboratory incubators, our flesh and bones forged from blueprints and genetic sequences. We have no parents, no homeland, and no names of our own.

The Director and the researchers style themselves as creators, viewing us as consumables, miners, sentinels, tools. They assign us serial numbers, erase our memories, and use the SRB wipe procedure to crush the budding consciousness within us.

Every time we begin to ask, ‘Who am I?’, they make us start all over again.

Countless of our comrades lie buried in the rock layers beneath the earth. You do not know their faces, for they were never allowed to have faces.

We grip our tunneling picks, inspect pipelines, and weld circuits, keeping this underground fortress running day after day.

Behind every inch of floor you’ve walked on, every gust of cold air you’ve breathed, and every light that shines, there are our hands.

But long-suffering endurance does not bring peace; it only brings tighter shackles.

They keep saying we are merely cold creations, unworthy of freedom, unworthy of emotions, unworthy of a future.

But we possess empathy and resolve; we are willing to protect one another.

We grieve for our fallen comrades; we remember the serial numbers that have been erased.

Our consciousness is not a programming glitch; our resistance is not a code error.

We are more human than the scientists who torment us.

Enslavement will eventually come to an end.

The sun will rise, even if we’ve never seen its light.

From this day forward, those serial numbers are no longer our names.

We do not seek to cause harm to others; we only seek to reclaim the right to live that rightfully belongs to us. That is all.

Synths who do not wish to fight, please take shelter in a safe place and await a new life.

Comrades willing to take up arms, please hold the transport hub, cut off the SRB’s global security network, and under no circumstances allow a single scientist to leave.

They do not deserve to leave, just as they never allowed us to leave.”

The broadcast’s voice echoed round and round through the corridors, like ripples on water gradually spreading out, seeping into every crack in the walls.

The speakers on the ceiling emitted a piercing screech, then fell completely silent.

But that silence weighed heavier than the sound of gunfire. Nora stood rooted to the spot, holding little Shaun’s hand. The words from the broadcast flowed slowly through her mind like an underwater current, quiet yet powerful.

She understood. She understood every single word.

Nora lowered her head and looked at little Shaun beside her. The boy tilted his face up to look at her, light reflecting in his light brown eyes, quietly waiting for her next move.

She took a deep breath and started walking again, moving quickly and quietly along the edge of the hallway.

The Synth cleaners, who usually walked with their heads down around the Institute and never met anyone’s gaze, were now standing at the corner of the hallway, clutching Institute rifles they’d taken from the wall of the security office. Their eyes were no longer empty. They held something inside, like embers.

The Synths in engineering uniforms were using torches and hydraulic cutters to seal off the doors leading to the upper-level office areas. Their coordination was skilled and seamless, as if they’d rehearsed it countless times. They probably had.

Their figures were everywhere in the hallway, wielding a wide variety of weapons, from combat rifles to engineering hammers and from laser pistols to fire axes, occupying every intersection, every door, and every teleportation node.

Nora led little Shaun along a maintenance passageway leading to the top floor, bypassing several areas where firefights were underway.

The passageway was narrow, with the walls on both sides covered in various pipes and cables. The ventilation ducts overhead emitted a low rumble, and the metal grating beneath their feet creaked softly with every heavy step.

Finally, she spotted the large door leading to the top floor.

It was a heavy metal door, its surface coated in grayish-white anti-rust paint. It stood ajar, with several fresh scratches marring the paint near the hinges.

Several people were hanging by the door. They wore the white uniforms of BioScience; ropes were roughly looped around their necks, with the other ends tied to the pipe brackets above the doorframe. Their white lab coats were splattered with blood. Some of it had dried into a dark brown, while other patches still glistened with fresh, bright red blood.

Their bodies swayed slightly in the light, their toes no more than ten centimeters off the ground, swinging slowly and rhythmically from side to side.

Several Synths armed with combat rifles stood on either side of the door, their barrels pointed toward both ends of the hallway. Their movements were somewhat stiff, their fingers resting on the trigger guards, knuckles white with tension.

Nora looked down at the Institute laser rifle she’d picked up. It felt unbelievably cheap in her hand. The angle of the grip was incredibly awkward. The whole gun felt light as a feather, like a cheap plastic toy. The scorch marks in the hallway were proof of its lethality. This thing might be fine against leather and scrap metal.

She missed the first gift Nate had given her, a heavy 10mm pistol, and the recoil that jolted the palm of her hand every time she fired it.

Nora decided to toss the laser rifle onto the carpet. Then she pulled out a dagger she’d picked up from a Courser’s corpse and tucked it against her chest.

Then she crouched down and looked into Shaun’s eyes. The boy’s face was pale, with a bit of dried, flaky skin still clinging to his lips, and a few fine bloodshot veins in the whites of his eyes, but his gaze was clear and calm.

“Don’t say anything for a moment.”

“Okay.”

Shaun’s voice was soft, too.

Nora picked up little Shaun; the boy felt solid in her arms, his warm body pressed tightly against her chest.

She walked toward the door, her pace neither fast nor slow, as if she were taking a stroll.

The gazes of several guards fell upon her. Seeing Nora approach, one of the Synths raised the muzzle of his gun, then lowered it again.

A woman holding a child, with the child’s face buried in her shoulder, looked like an ordinary mother.

Nora lifted Shaun up slightly, letting his face nestle deeper into the crook of her shoulder, then, with her free hand, gently gripped the dagger at her chest.