Fallout 4: Rebirth At Vault 81

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Later, Preston would deliver the ten thousand caps and an untraceable envelope containing another five to Briggs' wife, who broke down at the threshold of her home and thanked him without ever asking where it came from. She didn't need to. Some truths aren't told in words.

The smell of rain hadn't quite settled in yet, but the air over Sanctuary was thick with it. The clouds sat low over the rooftops, cotton-gray and brooding, as if the sky itself had watched the execution and wasn't sure how to respond.

In the comms tower above the north gate, Piper Wright sat hunched over the main broadcasting desk of Radio of Freedom, one headphone on, the other dangling loose. A red mug of Tarberry tea sat untouched near her elbow, gone cold. Her fingers hovered over the send switch, her other hand rubbing absently at the curve of her temple as static whispered faintly in her ear.

The broadcast mic was live. She just hadn't spoken yet.

The room was quiet except for the hum of vacuum tubes and the occasional groan of old metal shifting in its frame. Her eyes were locked on a crumpled notepad beside the mic — four pages of scrawled sentences, crossed-out lines, revised phrases, and half-doodles of what looked like the Minutemen symbol turned upside down. She'd been sitting there for almost an hour, trying to find the words.

Not the ones that told the truth. She had those. The facts were simple. Harold Briggs had sold out the President of the Freemasons Republic for ten thousand caps. A sniper team used the info to try and assassinate Sico during his return. One soldier — Jack — was killed. The assassin was taken out. Briggs was arrested, tried, sentenced, and executed by firing squad at dawn the next morning.

Simple facts.

It was the truth behind the facts that felt slippery in her throat. Not because she doubted it — but because this was the kind of story that could break something in people if it was told wrong. Or not told at all.

She leaned forward and flipped the switch fully open. The red light blinked once, then held steady.

"Good morning, Commonwealth."

Her voice was steady, though her eyes had dark shadows under them.

"This is Piper Wright, and you're listening to Radio of Freedom. Today's message is not easy. But I promised you truth when I first sat behind this mic, and I'm not about to stop now."

She paused. Just for a breath.

"Some of you have already heard the rumors. That there was an attempt on President Sico's life two days ago. That a convoy returning from the eastern territories was ambushed. That a soldier died. That there was a traitor in our ranks."

Another pause, longer this time.

"I'm here to tell you… those rumors are true."

The static seemed to hold its breath.

"Harold Briggs — a Castle radioman, a father of two, a veteran of the Quincy Push and the 2291 winter blockade — sold classified route coordinates to unknown contractors for ten thousand caps. That information was used to orchestrate an ambush that killed Corporal Jack Thompson. The President survived. The assassin was neutralized. Briggs was arrested within hours."

She exhaled through her nose, staring out the tower's side window, where a line of birds rested on the old electrical pole, silent.

"He confessed. No coercion, no delays. He admitted everything. Said his youngest daughter needed marrow treatments at Quincy General. That the caps would've bought her another six months. That he didn't expect anyone to die. That he just… panicked."

She looked down at her notes again. The next few lines were messy, ink smeared with what might've been a tea stain or tears. She didn't remember which.

"He was tried yesterday. Executed at dawn this morning by firing squad in accordance with Republic military law."

She let the words hang. No music, no segue, just the sound of an honest voice echoing across the Commonwealth.

"I was there," she said, quieter now. "I didn't want to be. But I went. I watched. I listened. And I saw a man who, for all his betrayal, did not beg. Did not scream. Did not make excuses. He stood and faced what he'd brought on himself."

Her jaw flexed. "And I saw something else, too."

She leaned closer to the mic.

"I saw President Sico order that Briggs be buried with the others — the honored dead. Not hidden away. Not thrown in a ditch. He closed the man's eyes himself. And later that same day, he issued a quiet order — ten thousand caps, the exact sum Briggs took, sent anonymously to his wife and children. Plus five thousand more. Enough to pay for treatment for the daughter Briggs tried to save."

Piper swallowed. Her throat was tight.

"That's not the kind of thing we're used to in the Wasteland. Mercy. Integrity. Justice with a heart." She shook her head slightly, eyes glistening. "It's not the kind of thing you see unless someone makes it real. And it was real. All of it."

She flicked a dial and pulled in a softer mic angle — more intimate now, more direct.

"So here's the part where I stop reading from a notepad and start speaking to you. You, the farmers and scavvers listening in Starlight. You, the guards posted at Tenpines and Finch. You, the kids listening on junk rigs out in the ashlands who maybe just wanted to hear a story."

She leaned in, hand resting on the mic's armature.

"What happened wasn't a story. It was a reckoning. It was what happens when a republic has laws — and those laws are enforced, even when it's hard. Even when it hurts. Harold Briggs made a choice, and it was the wrong one. He paid for it."

A beat passed.

"But that choice didn't erase everything else he was. And that's something we're going to have to learn to carry — all of us. Because if we reduce every person to their worst moment, we lose more than just them. We lose what made us a community in the first place."

She sat back for a moment, her fingers tight around the mug now, though the tea was still untouched.

"Some of you may be angry. Some may think it wasn't enough. Others may think it was too much. That's fair. Debate is fair. That's what freedom is. But let no one say that the Freemasons Republic hides its sins. Let no one say we flinch from truth."

Piper leaned forward again, her voice tightening just a little — not with fear, but fire.

"This was not vengeance. It was justice. And it's a hard, ugly thing sometimes. But if we're going to build a better world, we don't get to skip the hard parts. We walk through them, together."

She reached for the last line of the page. Read it. Didn't blink.

"And maybe, one day, Briggs' little girl will walk into a clinic that still has power. And meds. And a doctor who didn't flee when the bombs fell. And maybe she gets to live. Maybe she even finds out the truth about what her father did — and why he did it. Maybe she curses him. Or maybe she forgives him. But either way, she'll be alive to decide."

Piper turned the mic off. The red light died.

She sat there for a long while after the feed cut, just listening to the hum of silence. Somewhere outside, the first drops of rain began to tap softly on the tin roof. She picked up the mug and sipped, even though it was bitter and cold.

Downstairs, in the watchtower lobby that had become a sort of secondary press room, a young Republic runner stood waiting in a gray cloak, his boots muddy. When she came down the stairs, he gave her a solemn nod and handed her a sealed envelope.

"From the President," he said.

She took it, opened it with a thumbnail. Inside was a folded note, handwritten in simple, strong pen strokes:

Piper —

Thank you for saying what I couldn't. What I shouldn't.

We walk through it together.

—S.

Piper folded it back carefully and tucked it into her coat.

Then she stepped back out into the morning rain.

Across the Commonwealth, the message spread.

In Diamond City, the guards on the wall leaned a little longer on their rifles, listening. Mayor Danny smiled when he heard the broadcast.

In Bunker Hill, traders paused mid-bargain, a few muttering prayers or slurs, others nodding slowly.

In Goodneighbor, Fahrenheit listened from her upstairs suite, her face unreadable, a hand resting on the hilt of her old gun.

In The Castle, the new recruits gathered in the mess hall around a salvaged terminal radio, silent. Some of them had known Briggs. A few wept. No one left.

Out in the Glowing Sea, a scavenger sat in a rusted vertebrae of a crashed Vertibird, listening on a scratchy relay signal while watching storm clouds roll in. Even there — especially there — the word reached.

Sico's name was on every tongue that day.

The rain had started falling steady now — not hard, not yet, but enough to lace the windows of the Freemasons Republic Headquarters in streaks of soft gray, distorting the view of Sanctuary's skyline into a watercolor blur. The old federal-style building, once a schoolhouse before the war, had been repurposed brick by stubborn brick over the past decade. Now it was the closest thing the Republic had to a Capitol — its heart, its nerve center, and sometimes, when the world tilted sideways, its conscience.

President Sico stood at the tall windows of his office, hands clasped behind his back, watching rain drip from the flagpole outside. The Freemasons banner — a triangle enclosing a rising sun — sagged wetly in the breeze.

He hadn't spoken since returning from the firing squad that morning. Hadn't changed out of his coat either — the high-collared oilskin that still bore dried flecks of mud from the site. His breath ghosted faintly on the cold glass. Behind him, the clock on the wall ticked soft and slow.

There was a knock — soft, respectful.

"Come in," he said, not turning.

The door creaked open and shut. Preston Garvey and Sarah Lyons stepped into the room, both in full field gear despite the administrative setting — a quiet statement, perhaps, that they weren't just here for politics. They were soldiers, and more than that, they were loyal. Preston's hat dripped from its wide brim, and Sarah's silver-blonde hair was tied back tight under her armored gorget, the lion-shaped clasp at her collar faintly tarnished.

Sico finally turned.

"How's the search for Talbot?" he asked, voice low, hoarse around the edges.

The silence that followed told him what he already suspected.

"No word from the Commandos," Sarah said first, arms folding across her chest. "They're sweeping the old vaults beneath Milton and the ruins south of Poseidon Energy. No hits. If he's hiding, he's hiding deep."

Preston grimaced, leaning his elbows on the table. "We've got feelers out across the underworld. Raiders, runners, even some of the old Gunner remnants we flipped. Every lead's a dead end. Either he's not in the Commonwealth anymore…"

"Or he's got help," Sico finished.

The words lingered in the air like smoke.

Sarah nodded grimly. "He was Institute-trained. Even if he broke ranks, they wouldn't want someone like that talking freely. And if he didn't break ranks…"

"Then this whole thing might be bigger than Briggs," Preston said softly, finishing the thought none of them wanted to say out loud.

Sico exhaled through his nose and moved to his desk, fingers brushing over a battered folder — one of the many "black tags" stamped with a red diagonal stripe. His eyes didn't linger on it long. He sat heavily in the chair, leaning forward until his elbows pressed into the dark wood.

"Have we confirmed any link between Talbot and the sniper yet?" he asked.

Preston shook his head. "Nothing direct. But the gear that sniper used — Brotherhood recon armor, Gauss rifle with Institute-fused optics, customized targeting relay… that kind of hardware doesn't just float around out here. Someone bankrolled him."

Sarah's brow furrowed. "Or trained him."

Another pause. Another weight added to the room.

"Anything from Nora?" Sico asked, looking at Sarah specifically.

A flicker passed through her face — something unreadable.

"She's in deep cover," Sarah said. "Still maintaining her Institute liaison identity. But she sent a dead-drop through Rivet's team three days ago — said something about a shift in command protocols inside the Institute's bioscience division. Could be a power struggle. Or smoke. It wasn't clear."

Sico rubbed at the bridge of his nose.

"We need Talbot," he murmured. "Whether he's rogue or a plant. He's the only one who knows how deep this goes. And right now, we're bleeding trust faster than we can patch it."

He gestured vaguely toward the corner of the room where the office's old holotape recorder sat — the one still queued to play back Piper's broadcast. He hadn't needed to listen. He'd heard it live. Every word still rang in his chest.

"She did good," Preston said quietly.

"She did better than good," Sico replied. "She saved something today."

He didn't specify what. He didn't need to.

Sarah stepped forward, resting her armored knuckles lightly on the desk. "Permission to escalate the manhunt? We've been trying to keep things quiet, limited to recon assets and deniable contacts. But if Talbot's even thinking of moving on someone else, we can't afford restraint anymore."

Sico's eyes met hers. Hard. Measured.

"Do it," he said. "Whatever it takes. I want every viable asset hunting him. I want his picture on every bounty board between here and the Divide. And if the Institute is protecting him…"

His voice dropped an octave.

"…we take the gloves off."

Preston and Sarah both nodded. There was no hesitation in their eyes. No fear either. Just purpose. Purpose, and the weary patience of people who'd been through too many battles to romanticize what came next.

Sico stood again, crossing to the tall cabinet in the corner. He pulled open one of its old doors and withdrew a short stack of sealed intelligence folders — marked in red, blue, and black. Classified priority levels. He handed one each to Preston and Sarah.

"These are potential fallback targets. If Talbot's working with outside help, we hit their supply chains. Labs. Shadow hubs. Places where old tech gets funneled. We take away their reach. Then we box him in."

Sarah opened hers slightly — just enough to scan the top line. Her eyes narrowed.

"Gunners Nest Alpha? That's still live?"

"Intel says it's been reactivated," Sico said. "Light signatures picked up by Birdseye Patrol two nights ago. Low-frequency emissions. Pattern fits old Institute retrieval beacons."

"Christ," Preston muttered, flipping open his own file. "You think they're pulling assets from the ruins? Why now?"

"I don't think anything," Sico said. "But I know this: Talbot had access to post-War acquisition records. He knew what the Institute left behind."

He turned to the window again, as the rain thickened into a steady curtain across the Sanctuary streets. People moved below — under tarps, through alleys, in slick coats and scavenged umbrellas. Civilians and soldiers both. Not a city, not yet. But more than just a camp.

The thunder was distant — a low, irregular grumble that trembled through the reinforced walls of the Institute like a storm pacing at the edge of the world. Nora stood in the sterile white corridor outside Shaun's private office, her clipboard held loosely in one hand, the other brushing against the hem of her lab coat as if to steady herself.

She shouldn't be here. Not now. Not unscheduled. Not without cover.

But something had shifted.

Since the failed ambush on Sico — the sniper taken down before his second shot — Shaun had grown more withdrawn. More erratic. She'd seen it in the way his orders now came late at night, coded through multiple channels. The way certain security clearances were suddenly reassigned, or worse, revoked entirely. And most of all, in the way the others — Ayo, Allie, even Clayton — had begun to glance at each other in silence during meetings, eyes full of unspoken tension.

Something had broken.

She keyed the access panel beside the door and waited. A soft chime. Then the lock disengaged with a muted hiss. The heavy polymer door slid open.

Shaun's office was dim — the overhead fluorescents dialed down, casting long shadows across the clean, orderly desk and the massive console display embedded into the far wall. The holoprojector in the corner glowed faintly, mid-freeze on an anatomical breakdown of Generation 4 synth bone structures. But Shaun himself wasn't at his desk.

He was at the far window, staring down into the bioscience labs below, arms clasped behind his back. He didn't turn as she stepped inside.

"Father," she said softly.

"You shouldn't be here," Shaun replied without looking. His voice was calm. Tired.

"I know," Nora said, letting the door close behind her. "But I had to speak with you. About the… recent failures."

A beat of silence. Then: "You mean the failure to remove President Sico."

Nora's pulse ticked up. She walked slowly toward the desk, careful to stay relaxed. Controlled.

"You ordered it?" she asked, already knowing the answer.

Shaun finally turned.

His face was older now — wearier than when she'd first arrived, or perhaps just more exposed under the sterile Institute light. The mask of benevolence he so often wore in public was gone. In its place was something harder. Focused. Cold.

"I authorized the operation, yes," he said. "Talbot executed the plan. Or was supposed to."

"Why?" Nora asked. "Why him? Why Sico?"

Shaun moved to the desk, brushing his fingers across a data tablet before turning the holoprojector. A series of files came to life midair — rotating data points, video clips, and finally a dossier image of Sico in full uniform, arm outstretched during a speech before the Freemasons Congress.

"Because he's the final barrier," Shaun said. "The Freemasons Republic is a fractured experiment — a hybrid of old-world sentimentality and frontier militarism. Without Sico, it collapses. With him… it becomes unpredictable. Resistant."

"To what?"

"To what's necessary."

Nora stepped closer to the desk, heart tight in her throat. "What do you mean?"

Shaun tapped a command into the projector. The files shifted, revealing a second image. A synth. One that looked like Sico. Exactly.

Nora's stomach flipped.

"You were going to replace him."

Shaun nodded once.

"A Generation Four," he said. "Grown using full bio-templating, mental imprint fusion, and voice mapping. The latest in continuity modeling. It would have been seamless."

Nora stepped back, almost stumbling into the edge of a chair.

"You wanted to infiltrate the Freemasons Republic. Control it."

"Guide it," Shaun corrected. "Their survival is inevitable — they've reached the critical point. But if they're led by emotion, by nostalgia for a broken past, they'll fall into the same traps that doomed the old world. We can't afford another Brotherhood-style militarist state."

She stared at him. "You were going to assassinate him. Replace him. And use his voice to lead them to war."

Shaun didn't flinch. "A war they're already preparing for. The Brotherhood will never coexist with Sico's ideals. He's too close to them in vision — too much of a threat in posture. Sooner or later, they'll strike. When they do, the Freemasons must be ready. But we must control the terms of that readiness."

Nora felt a sickening chill bloom in her chest.

"And Talbot?"

Shaun's gaze flicked toward the holoprojector again. "He's in hiding. Contingency protocol. We embedded him with assets in the Glowing Sea — a vault outside the bounds of Brotherhood surveillance. He has the synth prototype and backup neural datasets. If he reaches the handoff point, we can finish what we started."

"And you didn't tell the Directorate?"

Shaun gave a faint smile. "Some things are above the Directorate. Above consensus."

There it was. The hidden root.

Nora felt her nails dig into the clipboard she hadn't even realized she was still holding.

"You think this is saving humanity?" she said, voice low. "By deception? By replacement?"

"I think this is humanity," Shaun said. "Survival through superiority. Through planning. Control. The Brotherhood believes in force. We believe in future."

He turned his back on her again, as though the matter were settled.

"Your duties in bioscience remain unchanged," he said. "I suggest you continue with your daily postings. I'll inform you if your clearance needs adjusting."

And then: "Unless you plan to betray me."

The words weren't sharp. Weren't angry. But they hung in the air like frost.

Nora didn't answer. She didn't trust her voice.

She left the room with steps that felt like echoes, the door hissing shut behind her.

But she didn't go back to bioscience.

Instead, she took the long corridor to the western research wing — where old server nodes from before the War still pulsed in low-power mode. She passed two synths along the way, nodding calmly. They didn't react.

In the far corner of the wing was an access point — a maintenance console hidden behind an alloy panel. She popped it open with the flat of her clipboard and plugged in a personal drive. Not Institute-issue. A salvaged Enclave shard, polished clean and loaded with only one function: extraction.

She had to move fast. If Shaun was serious — and she had no doubt he was — then Talbot wouldn't be idle. And Sico? He had no idea how close he'd come to being erased.

Data spilled onto the drive like a whispered confession: maps, logs, recorded comms between Talbot and an encrypted Institute node. A rendezvous point marked two days from now, deep in the Sea.

Nora yanked the shard free and closed the panel.

Then she pulled a small scrap of paper from her inner coat pocket — a Rivet City dead-drop frequency, tied to Rivet's neutral channels. Not traceable. Not monitored.

She scribbled a message.

TARGET LOCATED. GLOWING SEA. PROTOTYPE WITH TALBOT. SHAUN COMPROMISED. PLAN: SYNTH REPLACEMENT.

She folded it, sealed it in a heat-stamped packet, and slid it into the outbound relay bin.

________________________________________________

• 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:-