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He simply turned, coat flapping in the wind, and began the long walk back toward the heart of the Freemasons Republic.
The morning after the Sentinel inspection dawned overcast and gray, the heavy skies promising rain that hadn't quite arrived yet. Sico sat at his desk in the Freemasons Republic Headquarters — a broad, sand-colored building at the heart of Sanctuary's expanding civic quarter. His office, carved from a repurposed pre-War municipal hall, bore the marks of both function and forward motion. One wall was lined with shelves packed full of schematics, settlement reports, and binders of congressional minutes. A whiteboard stood to the side, marked in red ink with deadlines, troop movements, and projected development goals. The rest of the space was spare — a clean desk, a holoterminal, and two chairs facing him across its surface.
Sico leaned back in his chair, scanning a couriered document from the robotics division. It detailed a proposed expansion to the factory just north of the river — new lines for the logistics units, designed to move supplies faster between hubs. He made a quick note on the margin: "Prioritize this after Sentinel rollout." Then, with a sigh, he set it aside and rubbed at his temples.
The room was quiet but for the low hum of a nearby power conduit and the occasional tap of boots in the hallway outside.
Then there was a knock.
Three sharp raps — crisp, but not military. Sico looked up.
"Come in," he called.
The door swung open and Nora stepped inside.
She looked like she hadn't slept much. Her eyes were ringed with fatigue, hair loosely tied back under a faded cap, her Institute-issued coat worn over plain, muted clothes. She moved with that same self-contained grace she always carried, but it was tighter now — guarded, as if bracing for something unseen. She closed the door behind her and didn't speak right away.
Sico stood, his features softening. "Nora."
She gave a nod. "Hope I'm not interrupting."
"Not at all." He gestured to the chair across from him. "Sit."
She did, slowly, leaning forward with her hands clasped between her knees. There was a moment of quiet — one that said more than words could've — before she spoke again.
"My situation… it's not good."
Sico's brow furrowed, his posture straightening slightly. "What happened?"
Nora glanced toward the window, then back to him. Her voice was lower now, almost a whisper. "They've started suspecting me. About Madison. About the leaks. About everything."
He didn't interrupt. He let her continue.
"It started right after Madison's disappearance," she said. "At first, it was subtle. Routine check-ins with Ayo got longer. Random audits of my terminal access logs. Conversations that used to happen behind closed doors now stop when I enter the room. Then, two days ago, they restricted my relay access. Said it was a 'precautionary measure.' Shaun authorized it."
Sico's face remained still, but his eyes narrowed slightly. "He suspects you."
She nodded, slowly. "He hasn't confronted me directly. But he's distant. Detached. I don't think he's fully convinced, but Ayo… Ayo's different. He's not just suspicious — he's convinced I'm the one who helped Madison get out. And he's watching everything I do."
She let out a breath and leaned back, the fatigue in her shoulders more visible now. "Which is true. I did help her. And I've been feeding intel. But I've been careful. No terminal use. No private comms. All verbal handoffs. Still… they're circling."
Sico nodded slowly, absorbing every word. "Have they done anything beyond surveillance?"
"Not yet. No interrogations. No isolation. But it feels like they're waiting for something. Or maybe trying to bait me into slipping."
He glanced toward the far wall, jaw clenched in thought. "Then don't. Keep your head down. You're more valuable inside the Institute for now. But if it escalates — if they move on you — you run. No hesitation. You come back here."
"I thought about that," Nora admitted, voice quieter now. "Just packing up and slipping out. But if I do, it confirms everything they suspect. That's the end of the intel. And it could push Shaun into doing something drastic."
Sico met her gaze. "We've got the Sentinels coming online. The Minutemen are training a thousand more. We've got new medical units, drone wings, supply hubs, and civilian infrastructure finally coming together. What we don't have is someone inside the Institute feeding us truth. You're the only one left."
A pause.
"I know," she said. "And I'll hold the line as long as I can."
The silence between them settled like dust on concrete — heavy, but honest.
Sico finally leaned back and folded his arms. "You're not alone in this. If you need an extraction, you'll get one. I can get Carla and three courser disruptors into your sector in under six hours if we prep a relay point near Starlight. Preston's already scouted one of the old transmission relays out there."
Nora raised an eyebrow. "You've been planning this?"
"Contingency," Sico said simply. "I always have one. Especially for people I trust."
Nora gave a faint smile — tired, worn, but real. "Well… I'm glad to know I'm worth a rescue."
He smiled back, but only briefly.
"Have you heard anything more about Madison? Anything new from the Brotherhood?"
"Not directly," she said. "But there's chatter. The Brotherhood's suddenly interested in medical advancements again — cybernetic grafts, brainwave stabilizers, things they'd written off a year ago. That has to be Madison's influence."
Sico nodded. "And if she's helping them, they're only going to grow more dangerous. Still… that might be the wedge we need. The Brotherhood's command isn't unified. If Madison can builds a new faction inside their ranks, it could fracture them."
"Or it could give them a second wind," Nora countered. "And if they march with better tech, we'll need more than Sentinels to hold them off. Beside Madison are one of us, and she promise to change Liberty Prime command to follow our command."
He didn't disagree.
Sico leaned forward, elbows on the desk, hands clasped. His gaze didn't waver.
"Well," he said, his voice low but edged with steel, "it's good that they invited her to join us. Sending her to the Brotherhood to take Liberty Prime for them — that was the play. And if she pulls it off… if Liberty Prime comes online under our command instead of theirs… that'll be the end of it. The Brotherhood won't recover from that kind of loss. Not militarily. Not ideologically."
Nora gave a slow nod. Her shoulders eased a fraction, but the tension hadn't left her completely.
"Yeah," she murmured. "That was part of my plan all along — to get her out. When she reached out to me, it wasn't through any secure channel. Just a slip of paper dropped in my quarters, asking for help. I knew she was desperate. She never trusted the Institute fully — not since the SRB began tightening controls. Not since Shaun started pushing her research toward military ends."
She paused, then exhaled quietly.
"When Danse came to me, asking if I could help find Madison, I didn't hesitate. He didn't know the full story. Still doesn't. I just told him she was someone important. That she might be in danger. He bought it. He's always had a moral compass buried under that Brotherhood armor. I used that. Got him to run an infiltration op into Institute space as a diversion. While the SRB scrambled to plug that hole, I moved Madison through a maintenance wing and into a freight elevator shaft. One of my old exits. She was gone before they even figured out what was happening."
Sico's brows lifted slightly, impressed despite the gravity of it all. "Danse thinks he did the rescuing?"
She gave a tired smirk. "He thinks I helped him find her. That I didn't know where she was. I let him think that. It's better for everyone that way. He's too loyal to the Brotherhood's code to be fully trusted with our endgame."
Sico nodded slowly. "So Madison's with them now, and they think they've recruited her."
"They're watching her, sure," Nora said, "but she's always ten steps ahead. She's been feeding them what they want to hear — improvements to power distribution, AI command interfaces, new stabilizer protocols. But what she's really doing is rewriting Liberty Prime's command logic. She's almost done. Once she finishes the core override matrix and installs it into the Prime's CPU node, he won't just follow their orders — he'll follow ours."
"Good," Sico said again, but softer this time. "That kind of weapon… it's more than just firepower. It's a symbol. They built Liberty Prime to be their god of war — a walking sermon in steel and plasma. If he turns on them, it'll shatter their faith. And I don't just mean the soldiers."
Nora leaned back in her chair, running a hand through her hair. "The scribes, the Knights, the ones born into it — they already have doubts. The tech hoarding, the obsession with purity, the way they treat wastelanders like cattle. If Madison turns Liberty Prime, it might not just break their morale — it might cause a mutiny."
Sico stood and walked to the window behind his desk, his hands slipping into the pockets of his coat. From here, the panorama of Sanctuary stretched in every direction — half-built structures, farmland, the silhouette of the Sentinel hangar to the north. All of it carved out of nothing. All of it reclaimed by will.
"She's playing a dangerous game," he said without turning. "So are you. But the prize at the end of it… it's bigger than just winning a battle. It's rewriting the future. The Brotherhood wants to lock the world into a vault. The Institute wants to overwrite it with their own reflection. We're the only ones building something new."
"I know," Nora said, standing. "And I'm not quitting. Not yet. But I had to warn you. I don't know how much longer I can keep this up. If Ayo pushes harder, if Shaun decides to act… I may not get a second chance."
Sico turned back to her, his expression hardening with resolve.
"You'll get out if you need to. I'll make sure of it. But if there's any way to stay in, stay. They're close to cracking open something new — I can feel it. And we need eyes on that. Madison's buying us time with Liberty Prime, but if the Institute's building another Courser class, another synthetic override… we need to know. We need to stop it before it's another threat we have to face on the battlefield."
Nora hesitated, then gave a nod. "I'll do what I can. Just… don't forget about me if I go dark."
"Never," Sico said.
The words hung in the air between them for a moment. A simple promise, but ironclad.
Then a soft knock came at the door again, and it cracked open just a few inches. Carla's head appeared in the gap.
"Sorry to interrupt, boss," she said, eyes flicking to Nora, "but Preston's looking for you. Says the supply from Longneck's delayed, and there's talk of raiders pushing west."
Sico sighed and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "Of course there is. Tell him I'll be there in ten."
Carla nodded and disappeared again.
Nora looked toward the door. "Back to saving the world?"
Sico gave a dry smile. "Always."
She simply opened the door and slipped out, disappearing down the corridor with quiet, determined steps.
The door clicked shut behind her.
Sico lingered at his desk for a moment after the door shut behind Nora. The rain had eased into a quiet drizzle, tapping softly against the windows, whispering of the storm's passage. But inside, the storm remained — in his chest, behind his eyes, running like static down his arms. What Nora had told him would reshape everything in the coming days. Madison was close, Liberty Prime even closer. The Brotherhood didn't know they were feeding their own reckoning, and the Institute… well, Shaun's reckoning would come too, in time.
But for now, there were roads to rebuild, mouths to feed, bullets to count.
He stood, rolling the stiffness from his shoulders, and crossed the room. His coat hung on the wall hook, still damp from yesterday's march out to the training fields. He shrugged into it anyway — the chill in the air suited his mood.
Preston would be down in the logistics hall, where the slate walls were always echoing with chatter, boots, the occasional sharp clang of a dropped crate. Sico left the office, boots heavy on the wooden floors, the corridor dimly lit by lanterns and the faint buzz of salvaged ceiling lights. A few Minutemen passed him in the hall — some nodded, some offered short salutes. He returned them with a simple tilt of the head. No need for ceremony, not when things were still this raw, this real.
When he entered the logistics hall, Preston was already pacing beside a table stacked with maps and manifests. His duster was soaked at the hem, a line of fatigue visible in his brow, but his eyes were alert — always watching, always calculating.
"General," Preston said the moment he spotted Sico, "thanks for coming. We've got a few things to go over, but Longneck's at the top of the list."
Sico stepped up beside him, hands on his hips. "What happened? Caravan break down?"
"Worse," Preston said. He pointed to a scribbled map with colored markers laid across the supply routes. "The convoy out of Longneck's was late by nearly six hours. When they showed up, they were limping — one brahmin gone, the second wounded, two guards shot, and a third missing. Said they were ambushed just past Breakheart Banks. Small group, but organized. Not just a few raiders looking for easy loot. They had tactics. Coordination."
Sico frowned. "How many?"
"Hard to say. The survivors said they only saw four or five at first. Then more came from the trees. Maybe ten total. Could be more."
"They after the food?"
"No. That's what's strange. They didn't take anything from the carts except a few weapons. Left the purified water, the corn, even the ammo. Just scattered it across the road and burned one of the wagons before disappearing back into the woods."
Sico's jaw tightened. "That's not a raid. That's a message."
Preston nodded grimly. "That's what I was thinking. We've had two more reports in the last week of similar activity — hit-and-fade, supply disruption. They're not trying to starve us. They're trying to exhaust us."
Sico leaned over the table, one hand bracing himself on the edge. "We've been pushing east and south, taking back territory. Someone's noticing. Someone who doesn't want us rebuilding. Could be Gunners. Could be remnants of the old Rust Devils. Could even be Brotherhood sympathizers playing rogue."
"We can't afford to guess," Preston said. "Whatever they are, they're slowing our expansion and bleeding our convoys. We've got outposts past Malden relying on regular supply drops, and they're already rationing."
"What do you need?" Sico asked.
"A recon sweep east of Breakheart. Four squads, rotating in pairs. Drones in the sky if we can spare them. And a fallback plan — I want to reroute future Longneck runs further south, closer to the river. It's slower, but more defensible. I'll need combat engineers to survey and clear the path."
"Take what you need," Sico said without hesitation. "I'll authorize the extra squads. Use Carla's boys for the drone support — she's been itching to test the sensor upgrades on those old Eyebots anyway."
Preston nodded. "Appreciate it. And… there's one more thing."
He stepped around the table and motioned for Sico to follow. They walked to the other side of the hall, where a smaller map had been pinned up on a corkboard — this one more weathered, edges curling, but detailed. Red pins dotted the area west of Sanctuary, stretching toward Lexington.
"This used to be one of our major routes," Preston said, tapping a point near an old overpass. "Before the war, it was part of the I-93 corridor. We lost control of it two years ago. Gunners, ferals, collapsed tunnels. But if we can clear it, we could rebuild a major trade artery between Sanctuary and the old city zones."
Sico stared at the map, eyes tracing the lines, the distance, the obstacles. "That's ambitious. We'd need bulldozers, salvage crews, rail teams…"
"And fighters," Preston added. "A lot of them. But it's worth it. If we control that stretch, we can move between Sanctuary, Oberland, and Lexington in half the time. That means faster response to threats. Better logistics. And it shows people we're not just surviving anymore — we're reclaiming."
Sico was quiet for a moment, letting it settle in.
Then he nodded.
"Alright. Draw up a plan. I want estimates — time, manpower, supplies. Don't hold back. If we're going to rebuild the old world, we start by stitching the bones back together. This corridor could be the spine of our new Commonwealth."
Preston smiled, faint but proud. "I'll have the draft on your desk by morning."
Sico clapped a hand on his shoulder. "Good. And send scouts back to Longneck. Make sure they know we haven't forgotten them. If they've got wounded, send a Vertibird and bring them to Sanctuary for treatment."
"I'll take care of it," Preston said.
They stood for a moment longer, side by side, looking at the map — not as soldiers, but as builders. Dreamers. Men trying to carve something lasting from the ashes.
The war wasn't over.
Not with the Institute still alive in its underground sanctum.
Not with the Brotherhood sharpening its blades in the clouds.
Not with the ghosts of the old world stirring in the woods.
But right here, in the hammering of nails and the rattle of wheels and the courage of a hundred quiet settlers trying to make a home, the real revolution was already burning.
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• 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:-