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Sico's jaw tightened. He looked down the hall, then back the way he came. The fuse had been lit. And now, the game was on.
Sico stood in the hallway, the hum of the facility around him fading as his mind narrowed onto the weight of Sarah's words. A Minutemen convoy had been hit. Oberland's supply route. Casualties. Survivors said they saw Brotherhood colors.
His jaw was tight, hands clenched into fists at his sides. Not because of the Brotherhood—at least, not yet. Because deep down, he already knew what was coming. Sarah was good. Her gut was almost never wrong. And with what Nora had told him… with what he'd just told Mel… it all added up.
He paced.
The corridor was empty save for the low throb of industrial systems and the buzz of fluorescent light. Time stretched. He hated this part—the waiting. Action he could handle. Plans, orders, leading troops into battle? That was something he could do. But this quiet moment, where truth hung in the balance and nothing could be done to rush it—it gnawed at him.
Then his radio crackled again.
Sarah's voice, heavy with confirmation. "General… it's them. Not Brotherhood. Synths. Wearing Brotherhood armor."
Sico stopped.
The air seemed to press in around him, as if the walls themselves were reacting to the words. Synths. Disguised as Brotherhood soldiers. Just like Nora said.
"Damn it," he muttered, barely above a whisper.
He turned on his heel and stormed back the way he came, heading straight for the lift. His finger jabbed the call button hard enough to make the metal panel rattle. He could hear Sarah's voice again in his earpiece.
"One of the survivors said they saw one take a few rounds to the chest. No blood. No grunt. Just kept walking like nothing happened. Another saw one get hit by shrapnel—arm opened clean, wires and hydraulics. But the uniforms were perfect. Voice modulation, too."
Sico clenched his teeth. "How many dead?"
"Three. Driver, rear guard, and one of the engineers. Rest of the convoy's shaken, but they're stable. We've pulled them back to Lexington Outpost for debrief."
The lift opened. Sico stepped in, the doors closing behind him like the sealing of a vault.
"Get someone from Intel on the survivors," he said. "Have them sketch out every detail. Faces. Voices. Anything. And I want a forensic sweep on the wreckage. Get Curie on it. If there's a synth component left behind—even a fiber—we need it."
"Already on it," Sarah replied.
The lift moved. Down this time. Lower than the labs. Down into the secure war rooms beneath Minutemen HQ. The moment he stepped off the lift, two guards at the door straightened. They didn't say a word—just opened the thick, reinforced doors to the Strategic Command Center.
The room buzzed with quiet activity. Screens lined the walls, some displaying satellite imagery, others scrolling data feeds from scouts and outposts. Preston was already there, standing near the main table with a grim expression. He turned as Sico entered.
"You heard," Preston said.
"I did." Sico walked straight to the center of the table. "Any Brotherhood chatter?"
"Nothing direct," Preston replied. "But we did pick up a Vertibird patrol near Finch Farm about thirty minutes after the attack. Could be coincidence. Could be cleanup."
Sico looked around the table. "Anyone from Recon here?"
Sarah's voice came from behind as she entered. "Not yet. But we've flagged this incident for Watchpoint Theta. They'll have eyes on Brotherhood movements within the hour."
Sico nodded. "Good."
He exhaled slowly, then looked up at the digital map above them. The blinking red light at Greyditch glared like an accusation. Three of their people dead. And not from a Brotherhood ambush—but from a deception. The Institute had made their move.
"We need to act," Preston said quietly.
Sico looked at him, his eyes hard. "We will. But not how they want us to."
He gestured to the map. "The Institute thinks they're playing puppet master—pulling strings, making us dance. First strike was Brotherhood colors. Next one's probably the opposite. Synths in Minutemen gear hitting Brotherhood supply lines. They want us angry. They want us to lash out. To react without thinking."
Sarah crossed her arms. "So we think instead?"
"We outthink them," Sico replied. "We build a net around them. Quiet, precise, and deep."
He stepped forward and tapped a command into the terminal. The map zoomed in on a quadrant north of University Point—once Institute territory, now riddled with dead zones and suspicious signals.
"This is where we bait them. We leak a convoy plan. Quiet. Only a few people know it. We make it look like a high-value Minutemen supply run. Troop movement. Maybe even fake chatter about a new prototype. We let them take the bait."
Sarah caught on immediately. "And then what? We track them?"
Sico nodded. "We seed the area with remote scanners. Mark IIs. Mel's prototype. We tune the AI to watch for inconsistencies—movement, thermal readings, gait analysis. Synths move differently, no matter how well they're programmed."
Preston added, "If they strike, we'll know. And if they try to disappear afterward…"
"We follow the trail," Sico finished. "Back to wherever they're operating from."
The room was quiet for a beat.
Then Sarah spoke. "And the Brotherhood?"
Sico's face darkened. "We stay ahead of them. If they believe we're behind the attack at Greyditch, it's war. But if we present them with proof—clear, undeniable proof that synths hit our convoy in their gear—we might hold the line. Maybe even get them to listen."
Preston shook his head slowly. "Maxson doesn't listen much these days."
"No," Sico admitted. "But Danse might. And if we can get through to him, he might just be able to talk Maxson down."
He looked around the room.
"This is it. The Institute blinked first. Now we push back—hard. But smart. I want teams briefed within the hour. Commanders prepped. Recon on standby. And someone get Mel—if that prototype's going live, I want him overseeing the first field op personally."
Sarah and Preston both nodded, already turning to their terminals, relaying orders.
Sico remained still for a moment, eyes locked on the map. His thoughts drifted to the fallen at Greyditch. To the faceless synths wearing Brotherhood colors. To the quiet war that had now, without question, erupted into something far more dangerous.
Then he turned and walked out—back toward the lift, toward the labs, and toward Mel.
Mel was where he'd left him, hunched over a terminal, eyes bleary but determined. He looked up as Sico entered, saw the look in his eyes, and didn't need to ask.
"It happened, didn't it?" he said quietly.
Sico nodded. "Greyditch. Convoy hit. Three dead. Synths in Brotherhood gear."
Mel cursed under his breath. "How many people know?"
"Too many already. But not the full truth. Not yet."
Sico stepped forward and laid a hand on the Mark II prototype. "We're going live with this. Field test tonight. High-risk zone."
Mel straightened. "I'll go with them."
"I figured you'd say that."
Mel stripped off his lab coat and reached for a tactical vest hanging nearby. "I'll need a scout unit. Someone who knows how to move quiet."
Sico tapped his wrist communicator. "Already assembling. You'll rendezvous at Watchpoint Theta. Full briefing there. Sarah will send the convoy route leak through encrypted channels. We want them to bite."
Mel looked at the scanner, then back to Sico. "You think we'll find them?"
"I think," Sico said, voice low and certain, "that if we don't, we won't get another chance."
He looked at Mel for a long moment, then offered his hand.
"Be careful out there."
Mel took it. "We'll bring back what you need."
As he turned to gear up, Sico remained in the lab for a moment longer, watching the controlled chaos around him. The workbenches, the scattered tools, the soft flicker of monitors.
Then he left.
Back in the Strategic Command Center, Sarah was pulling up satellite overlays when the secure line pinged—an incoming request from the Castle.
Ronnie Shaw.
Sico entered just as Sarah answered, and Ronnie's voice came crackling through.
"Heard about Greyditch. Intel's moving fast down here—locals are scared, but more than that, they're confused. Some say it was Brotherhood. Some say it was us. You need to get ahead of this before the whole Commonwealth turns paranoid."
Sico moved to the console. "We are. I'm sending you the field op details. Quiet distribution only. No wide channels. We're baiting a counter-strike, hoping they reveal themselves."
Ronnie whistled. "Risky. But smart."
He leaned on the table. "Ronnie… if this fails, we're in a three-way war. Minutemen. Brotherhood. Institute. That's the future we're trying to stop."
Ronnie was quiet for a long moment. Then she said, "Then don't fail."
Sico gave a tired smile. "Working on it."
The line went dead. Silence fell again in the war room.
The war room buzzed with low voices and urgent purpose as Sico stepped back from the console, the call with Ronnie still echoing in his ears. Her last words—"Then don't fail"—weren't a threat. They were a reminder. A burden. A challenge. The kind of words you carry with you into the fire.
He turned to Preston, Sarah, Albert, Robert, and MacCready, who had gathered around the main strategic table. These were his people—his core. Soldiers, leaders, fighters who'd bled for the Minutemen, for the Commonwealth. He didn't need to explain the stakes. They already knew.
"Alright," Sico said, voice low but firm, "we're going live with the bait convoy. Tonight."
MacCready gave a sharp nod. "Just say the word, boss. I've got two squads ready for deployment. One sniper-heavy, one recon."
Sico looked to him. "We'll need both. Recon forward, snipers on overwatch. This is surgical. I don't want a damn stray bullet alerting them before we've got the evidence we need."
"Copy that," MacCready replied, already pulling out a small holopad and tapping in assignments.
Robert crossed his arms. "What about hardware? If we're walking into a trap to catch a trap, we need teeth."
Sico glanced over at Sarah, who had the same thought. She raised an eyebrow.
"We're not going in soft," Sico said. "I'm deploying four Sentinel tanks—all of it from Sanctuary."
That turned heads.
Albert let out a low whistle. "You're serious."
"Dead serious," Sico replied. "They'll move out under cover of night. Routes locked to secure channels. No chatter, no lights, no outside comms until they hit final staging ground near the bait zone. I want them in ambush positions before the convoy even rolls out."
Preston leaned forward. "That's a hell of a lot of firepower."
"We're not using them to make a statement," Sico said. "They're insurance. If the Institute sends in a kill squad—or worse, if they pull some new prototype stunt—we need to make sure our people come home."
Sarah added, "And if the Brotherhood gets word of the tanks moving, they'll assume we're prepping for war."
Sico met her gaze. "That's why we don't let them get wind of it. I'll authorize local comm jammers around the deployment zones. Nothing gets in or out once the operation starts."
Albert nodded slowly. "We can have the tanks synced to a shadow protocol—limited AI engagement. Human command override, but auto-targeting if hostile synths are identified."
"Do it," Sico ordered.
"Copy," Albert said, already flipping through his pip-boy, sending encrypted task codes.
MacCready looked up from his screen. "I'll head to Watchpoint Theta personally. Oversee recon placement and sniper nests. You'll have a pair of spotters with long-range optics feeding live intel straight to HQ."
"Make sure they've got redundancies," Sico added. "Thermals. Motion sensors. And Mel's Mark II scanners—we seed the zone before anything moves. If a synth so much as twitches weird, I want a ping."
"Got it," MacCready said. "You'll have eyes in the trees."
Robert turned back to Sico. "What's the convoy carrying?"
"Crates," Sico said simply. "Crates that look important. Sealed. Labeled with prototype codenames—Project Morningstar, Project Halo, stuff that sounds juicy. But it's all garbage. Old pre-War scrap."
Sarah smirked. "And the chatter?"
"Leaked in small drops," Sico replied. "Encrypted channels with just enough broken code that anyone sniffing around will think they cracked something. They'll think we're moving experimental weapons. Maybe a new synth scanner prototype."
"They'll come for it," Preston said.
"They have to," Sico replied. "They staged Greyditch to pit us against the Brotherhood. That didn't work. Now they'll try to double down. So we turn their trap into ours."
The group nodded, the plan crystallizing in their minds.
"Robert," Sico continued, "you'll oversee the decoy convoy. Pick drivers who know the stakes. The second anything feels off, they fall back behind the Sentinels. They don't engage. We're not looking for a shootout—we're looking for proof."
Robert's expression hardened. "They'll be ready."
"Albert, coordinate with Mel and Sturges," Sico said. "We'll need the Mark II scanners tested and calibrated to work with our motion sensors and targeting algorithms. I don't want the Sentinels shooting first unless it's verified."
Albert gave a thumbs-up. "I'll get on it now."
Sico turned to Preston. "I want you on overwatch from HQ. Monitor all feeds. If we lose contact with any unit, you call it. No hero plays. We extract fast and hard if it goes sideways."
"You got it," Preston said.
Sarah glanced at the map. "You think they'll send synths again? In Brotherhood gear?"
Sico shook his head. "They'll switch it up. Maybe this time they wear our uniforms. Make it look like we're attacking the Brotherhood."
MacCready muttered, "So either way, someone's gonna shoot at the wrong damn people."
"Not if we get ahead of it," Sico said. "If we pull this off, we expose the Institute's game. We get data—movement signatures, combat logs, voice patterns, serial numbers burned into synth parts. Something we can bring to Danse."
Preston grunted. "Big 'if.'"
"Then we make it happen," Sico said. "This is our shot. We don't get another."
Silence settled briefly over the room.
Then everyone moved.
Albert and Robert peeled off to the eastern tactical bay, where the Sentinel control pods were housed. Sarah went to secure communications, locking down encrypted channels and setting up rotating keys. Preston remained by the main console, issuing movement orders to Watchpoint Theta, confirming sniper squad deployment and recon readiness. MacCready vanished to the armory, grabbing his rifle and a suppressed sidearm.
Sico stayed behind, watching the map update in real time. Four green dots began moving slowly across the grid—Sentinel units rolling out from their hidden hangars. The bait convoy was still a yellow placeholder, but that would change soon.
He exhaled, long and slow. His mind buzzed with risk calculations, fail-safes, fallback plans. There were too many variables. But the most dangerous one—the Institute's audacity to manipulate both major factions into a war neither wanted—could not be ignored.
They want chaos, he thought. So we give them clarity. Truth. Cold and unflinching.
Two hours later, the war room dimmed into night-mode, the lighting turning a soft red hue. Most of HQ was silent now, except for the operation floors. The bait convoy was ready—four armored truck vehicles, painted Minutemen tan, with fake cargo sealed in reinforced crates. They were already en route, crawling through the shadows of the Commonwealth, escorted by silent recon scouts and watched by sniper teams hidden in the cliffs.
From a hidden perch at Watchpoint Theta, MacCready checked his scope. Wind was steady, visibility decent. His earpiece clicked once—Sarah.
"All positions green," she said. "Convoy entering bait zone in five minutes."
"Roger that," MacCready replied, eyes glued to the treeline. "Let's see if the fish bite."
Near him, Mel crouched beside the Mark II scanner he'd mounted in a hollowed-out log. A tiny pulse ran through it, searching, analyzing, waiting for the tiniest ripple in thermal and motion signatures.
Then it hit.
A faint anomaly. No heat signature, but movement—fluid and deliberate, about 300 meters north of the convoy.
Mel tensed. "Sico, this is Mel. Got something. Scanner picked up a cold-body mover, humanoid gait, no biometric data."
Back at HQ, Sico straightened.
"Position?" he asked.
"North tree line, marker Echo-6," Mel said. "It's circling wide. Not alone either—got two more pings moving in tandem. Same pattern. No thermal. They're not human."
Preston's fingers flew across the console. "Cross-checking against known Institute tactics… yep. Classic flanking maneuver."
Sico didn't hesitate. "Order the convoy to hold. Sentinels prepare for live engagement. Full visual confirmation only—no weapons free unless hostile confirmed."
The call went out.
Robert, driving the lead vehicle, acknowledged. The convoy halted on a ridge overlooking a half-collapsed overpass. The wind howled. Silence.
Then, a voice. Metallic. Too smooth.
"This is Brotherhood patrol Sigma. Identify your cargo and destination."
MacCready flinched. "That's not Brotherhood. That's a synth voice modulator. I've heard Danse talk—that ain't it."
Mel added, "Scanner confirms. Modulation frequencies don't match any known Brotherhood comms. It's synthetic."
Sico gave the order. "Sentinels—engage cloaked ambush mode. Visual confirm, then light them up."
From the ridges to the east and west, the hidden Sentinel tanks powered up, camouflage panels peeling away as their turrets aligned. Auto-targeting locked onto the synths' positions.
Then, chaos.
The synths opened fire—laser bursts erupting in a cone aimed directly at the convoy. But they hadn't accounted for the Sentinels. In a blinding instant, blue plasma and railgun fire streaked across the night sky. One synth exploded in a shower of metal and synthetic flesh. Another tried to flee, only to be tackled by a Minutemen recon unit—alive, mostly intact.
"Got one!" came the call. "It's still active—trying to self-destruct!"
Mel sprinted to the site, jammed a dampener chip into the synth's control port just in time. The glowing core dimmed. It went still.
Sico's voice cut in. "Secure that unit. Get it into containment. Full lockdown."
"Copy that," Mel breathed, heart racing.
Within ten minutes, the rest of the synthetic ambush team was neutralized. Two dead. One captured. All wearing Brotherhood uniforms.
Sico stared at the screen in the war room, jaw clenched. Proof.
"Sarah," he said. "Send the visual and audio logs to Danse. Direct line. No middlemen. And tell him—'They wore our faces. They wanted a war. Don't give it to them.'"
She nodded, already patching the data package.
Preston exhaled deeply. "We did it."
"No," Sico replied quietly. "We started it. Now we finish it."
He turned from the map, eyes shadowed, mind already on the next move. The war with the Institute had gone from rumor to reality.
________________________________________________
• 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:-