If you want to read 20 Chapters ahead, be sure to check out my Patreon!!!
Go to https://www.patreon.com/Tang12
___________________________
And as the golden light deepened into orange, and the soft sounds of rebuilding stirred in the heart of Sanctuary Hills, the Commonwealth felt—perhaps for the first time in over two centuries—like something new was rising from the ruins.
The next morning arrived with a stubborn slowness, dragging the weight of exhaustion and duty into the newly minted office of the President of the Freemasons Republic.
Sanctuary Hills was quiet in the early dawn, the trees along the eastern edge still rustling from the winds that had rolled in overnight. A fine layer of dew clung to the grass outside the central HQ, once a Minutemen HQ and now a reinforced administrative hub draped in the Freemasons' colors. A flag fluttered gently outside its main doors — a sunrise crest split by two brahmin horns, flanked by wheat and steel. It didn't yet have the fame or legend of a star-spangled banner, but it stood for something — unity born from ruin, and the stubborn refusal to let hope die.
Inside, however, Sico wasn't looking at flags.
He was staring at paper.
Mountains of it.
A stack of requisition forms tilted precariously on one corner of his desk. Another pile held drafts of patrol schedules, education proposals, militia training rosters, and revised trade agreements for crops between Tenpines Bluff and Oberland Station. A thick binder stamped with the Institute's surveillance analysis — compiled over months by Carla and Sarah — sat unopened, next to a leather-bound volume that contained early drafts of the Republic's provisional constitution.
It was his first full day in the role. No cameras. No applause. Just the hard, silent weight of responsibility.
Sico leaned back in the old creaky chair. As the head of the Republic, he got a lot of work to do. The window beside his desk had been repaired recently with salvaged glass from University Point, and it let in a soft morning light that streaked across the room, catching on dust motes in the air.
He picked up a pen, flexed his wrist, and signed his first document — an approval for increased food rations to Somerville Place after reports of poor crop yield due to radroach infestation. Then another — a patrol amendment allowing two soldiers from Graygarden to rotate toward Covenant for weekly check-ins. Then a third — approving Geneva's request to begin a literacy initiative in the southern settlements, modeled on the old-world "Readers for All" system.
Hours passed in a blur of ink and strain.
He stopped only briefly to sip at a lukewarm cup of roasted dandelion coffee, the taste bitter but necessary. Outside, the plaza stirred with movement — supply teams loading trucks, engineers drawing chalk outlines for a new public bathhouse, and recruits running early drills in the crisp air. He could hear the faint crack of a drill instructor's voice every now and then, barking orders with that blend of authority and purpose.
Despite the bustle outside, his office remained a sanctuary of stillness — and relentless paper.
Carla entered sometime after noon, tapping lightly on the door before letting herself in.
"You alive in here?" she asked, raising an eyebrow as she stepped through.
"Define alive," Sico muttered, rubbing the side of his face. "I think the ink is starting to seep into my bloodstream."
She chuckled and crossed the room, placing a fresh stack of reports down — smaller, but still significant.
"Supplies from the Castle just came in. General Lyle's caravan arrived early — they've got spare ceramic and even a crate of functioning capacitors. Should help with the Sentinel tank construction."
"Good," he said, scribbling a note to pass the information to Sturges to forward it to the Factory corps. "Tell Sturges to forward that to the Factory, as they get priority."
"Already did."
She watched him for a moment, her grin fading slightly. "You know you don't have to do this all in one day."
He looked up, tired but resolute. "If I don't read it, who will?"
"You've got a staff now, you know," she pointed out. "You're not just the guy with the rifle anymore. You're the guy signing off on water treatment systems and school books."
He gestured at the chaos on his desk. "Exactly why I can't afford to miss a detail."
Carla sighed but didn't press further. "At least let me bring you lunch before you pass out."
Sico gave a small nod of thanks, and she disappeared through the door again, her boots thudding softly down the corridor.
He returned to the files. It wasn't glamorous work — no grand speeches or battlefield victories — but this was where the real fight for the Commonwealth's future was happening now. One settlement's irrigation plan. One family's trade permit. One child's right to learn how to read.
As afternoon rolled on, Sarah arrived, fresh from inspecting the truck yard and the construction teams on the northern perimeter.
"You've been at this since dawn," she said, frowning as she stepped into the office.
"Longer than that," he mumbled, scanning a revised amendment to the patrol doctrine. "Started before breakfast."
"You missed breakfast?" She raised a brow.
"I missed a lot of things. Sleep. Daylight. My youth."
Sarah walked to the desk, leaned over, and casually plucked the pen from his hand. "Break. Now."
"Sarah—"
"No. You're going to eat something, walk a few laps around the building, and then — maybe — I'll let you back in here."
He stared at her, somewhere between gratitude and fatigue, then relented with a long sigh. "Fine. Five minutes."
"Fifteen," she corrected.
As he rose from the chair — joints cracking slightly — he looked down at the sea of bureaucracy and legal ink left behind. Somehow, despite the absurdity of it, he smiled.
"I thought surviving the Institute would be the hard part."
Sarah grinned as she handed him a snack packet from her belt pouch — roasted corn and preserved brahmin jerky.
"You didn't build a country to nap, Mr. President."
He chuckled as he walked out into the light. The smell of steel and earth greeted him. A patrol unit jogged past, saluting briefly. He nodded in return.
And in that moment, Sico felt it again — that same gravity he had felt the day before when he lifted the flare gun in front of the Congress delegates.
He wasn't a soldier anymore.
He was a symbol. A planner. A keeper of promises.
And the work had only just begun.
He finished his lap, returned to the office, and with renewed focus, picked up the next document.
A draft for a national holiday — Unity Day, proposed by one of the delegates from Finch Farm. A celebration of the day the Congress met for the first time.
He set it aside for approval.
Sico had just finished penciling in a marginal note beside the Unity Day proposal — something about including local settlement parades and rotating leadership speeches — when his eye caught another draft near the bottom of the second pile. It was hand-written, not typed, and bore the unmistakable, confident strokes of someone who'd spent years scribbling orders in the dirt and shouting over gunfire.
Preston Garvey.
Sico leaned back again, stretching out his spine before pulling the draft in front of him. The paper smelled faintly of the old-world ink they used in Minutemen HQ, maybe from the same supply batch Carla had salvaged from Lexington Library last winter.
Proposal for Settlement Militias: Local First-Line Defense Units
The heading was bold, underlined twice.
Sico scanned the first paragraph, his brow furrowing as he read.
"It's time each settlement stops relying solely on central support. Too often, we arrive after the damage is done — homes burned, food stolen, people dead. They need to defend themselves until help can get there. What I propose is a formal training program: militias in every settlement. Locals. Farmers, traders, scavvers — anyone willing to pick up arms. But we train them right. Real discipline. Teamwork. Chain of command. They're not replacements for soldiers, but they're the firewall until soldiers arrive. And more importantly — it gives people something they've never had consistently: agency."
Sico exhaled, running a thumb down the margin as he kept reading. Preston had even outlined a rotational schedule — experienced Minutemen trainers would spend two weeks at a time in each region, rotating through hubs like Oberland, The Slog, Finch Farm, and Somerville Place. There were line items for basic combat drills, communication signals, medical triage, and defensive formations.
It wasn't just a tactical plan. It was a statement.
A republic that teaches every citizen to stand tall.
He scribbled a note in the corner: "Yes. Needs coordination w/ Defense & Training Div. Assign Sarah oversight. Start pilot at Finch + The Slog."
Before he could file it away, Carla returned, this time with a metal food tray steaming gently in the cool afternoon air.
"Figured if I didn't bring you something hot, you'd start eating the paperwork," she said, setting it down. Grilled mirelurk cakes, radstag rice, and a chunk of baked tarberry cornbread. "And before you say anything, no, it's not poisoned. The kitchen crew made it."
Sico chuckled. "Then I'm eating fast. They don't joke about portions in there."
She slid into the chair opposite his desk as he dug into the tray, chewing gratefully as she eyed the organized chaos around them.
"Any decisions?"
He nodded between bites, pushing Preston's proposal toward her. "Militia plan. I like it. Starts with two settlements, then rolls out across the map. Proper training. Clear hierarchy. It's not perfect, but it's a start."
Carla's eyes scanned the draft. "Preston's got the right idea. We've lost too many good folks because they didn't have anything more than a rusted pipe and bad aim."
Sico was nodding when another draft caught his eye — this one stamped with an old Commonwealth Minutemen seal that had faded at the edges. He recognized the penmanship immediately, sharp and assertive, like it had been chiseled instead of written.
Ronnie Shaw.
She'd signed it "Sharp," like always — her old nickname from the Battle of Quincy that had stuck long after. Even after her age slowed her down physically, she remained one of the sharpest minds in the entire command structure, and Sico respected her in the same way a recruit respects their drill instructor — with a healthy dose of fear and admiration.
Subject: Strategic Perimeter Enhancements
"If we're serious about calling ourselves a republic, then we need to start acting like one. Settlements aren't just dots on a map — they're pillars. And pillars fall when you leave them exposed. We need walls. Not scrap fences and hope. Walls. Built with proper layout, stone if available, sheet metal reinforced if not. Each settlement gets at least two elevated watchtowers, with rotation duty for the trained militia. And once the towers go up, we start mounting artillery pieces. One per settlement minimum. That expands our fire coverage by threefold. If we space it right, we can blanket 70% of the Republic in protective range."
The rest of the draft included construction specs, draft layouts for hilltop artillery emplacements, and even recommendations for which settlements could share resources — like using The Castle's excess concrete stores to supply Abernathy Farm's expansion.
Sico blinked, his mind already racing.
He hadn't even been in the chair for twenty-four hours and his military heads were thinking in decades. That was a good thing. But it also meant someone had to weave all these moving parts into a single, functioning doctrine.
He grabbed another sheet and started scribbling:
"Ronnie's plan: approve Phase I. Start w/ Finch, Greentop, Abernathy. Cross-ref Preston's militia rollout. Add tower designs to Engineering docket. Assign MacCready & Carla as artillery placement overseers. Logistics run through Castle + Old North Highway routes."
Carla leaned over, smirking. "Walls and watchtowers. She never thinks small, does she?"
"She doesn't have time to," Sico muttered, flipping to a map of the Republic's current settlement layout. "She's looking ten moves ahead. The Brotherhood's quiet. That worries me. The Institute's fractured but still capable."
Carla then said, eyes narrowing. "You think they'll try something?"
"Eventually. Ronnie's right. We've had enough reaction. It's time we start setting the tempo."
He rose, walking to the wide cork board on the wall near the window — their live layout of the Republic's current strategic situation. Pushpins dotted the region, each color-coded: blue for safe zones, yellow for developing, red for contested. He grabbed three new pins from the desk tray and jammed them into Finch Farm, Abernathy, and Greentop.
"Phase One," he said aloud.
Behind him, Carla nodded. "I'll alert Engineering. And I'll have MacCready swing north with a recon team."
Before she left, she paused at the door. "You're doing good, Sico."
He didn't answer at first. Just stood there, watching the pins on the map, the faint breeze outside rustling the curtain beside it.
When he finally spoke, it was soft, but clear.
"I'm just getting started."
⸻
Evening came with a slow orange bleed across the western sky, staining the world in firelight as lanterns flickered to life across Sanctuary's square. Tired voices laughed around communal fire pits, children dashed barefoot between tents and prefab units, and the scent of fresh stew rolled out from the outdoor kitchen like a fog.
But inside the office, Sico hadn't left.
Not really.
His jacket hung on the back of the chair. Sleeves rolled. Eyes tired. But mind turning like the gears of a Protectron with new batteries.
He now had three official files labeled for the next strategic session: Local Militias, Defensive Architecture, and Artillery Range Expansion. He'd scheduled a formal meeting in two days with Sarah, Carla, Ronnie, Preston, and MacCready to finalize Phase One.
He added a fourth folder before sunset, too — "National Infrastructure Priorities" — and inside it, he placed the proposals for roads, water access, electrical grid expansion, and inter-settlement communication hubs.
Because once you had walls and defenders, the people still needed to live.
They needed more than to survive.
They needed a future.
⸻
It was well past dark when Sarah returned.
She didn't knock this time — just walked in, carrying a bundle of datapads under one arm and a hand-drawn sketch of a hybrid energy turbine in the other.
"You've been here all day," she said.
Sico raised his brows. "So have you."
"Yeah, but I've been breathing fresh air."
He smiled faintly and set his pen down. "Preston and Ronnie sent in two plans. Militia training. Settlement fortifications and artillery."
She raised an eyebrow. "You approved them?"
"I did."
She nodded slowly. "Good. I was going to suggest the same. Preston's model is solid. And Ronnie's been waiting months for someone to greenlight her 'wall-everything' campaign."
Sico tapped the map again, this time motioning toward the red perimeter around Somerville Place and Egret Tours Marina.
"I want these zones blue by next quarter. That means full integration. Training. Walls. Watchtowers. I want the people living there to know they're not on the edge of nowhere anymore."
Sarah stepped up beside him, folding her arms.
"You really believe we can build all of this? A real republic?"
"I do," he said. "And I believe it starts with something simple."
She looked over, curious. "What's that?"
He smiled, quietly, and said:
"A wall. A lesson. And a kid learning to read by candlelight."
⸻
The candle burned low on Sico's desk as the hour deepened into silence.
Outside, the Freemasons flag caught the wind again — just enough to show its brahmin horns, wheat and steel, and the rising crest behind it.
________________________________________________
• 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:-