Fallout 4: Rebirth At Vault 81

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Their ride was an armored Truck, treads grinding through irradiated muck as they rolled across the skeletal remnants of what had once been Route 95. Trees had long since rotted to twisted, blackened stumps. Fog clung to the valleys in toxic coils, and mutated wildlife kept to the distance, their eyes glowing faintly in the dark.

The sun was just beginning to break through the dense ash-choked skies when the armored truck crested the last ridge before the Glowing Sea. Even in full Hazmat Shita gear, Nora felt the shift in the air—heavier, more brittle somehow. The wind hissed low through the skeletons of dead trees, dragging radioactive dust in serpentine streams across the cracked ground. Everything beyond the checkpoint looked like the memory of a world burned away.

Checkpoint Echo wasn't much—just a rusted steel frame half-sunk into a roadside embankment, the remains of an old military barricade long abandoned. Concrete barriers leaned at odd angles, half-covered in dirt and fungus. A comms dish jutted from a patch of scorched earth nearby, strung to a makeshift antenna someone had cobbled together with scavenged Brotherhood tech and a few coils of copper wire. Despite its dilapidation, the place felt alive with quiet tension. Too quiet.

Nora stepped off the transport last, her boots crunching the gravel with a muted thud. The moment she disembarked, the air changed. Not just because of the radiation levels spiking on her HUD, but because Sico was already there.

He wasn't in a full Shita suit like hers, but wore a modified version—sleek black armor plated over a sealed body suit, the telltale shimmer of an EM field faintly rippling over his forearms. A hood covered most of his head, and his rebreather mask—smaller than the standard—clicked softly with each breath he took. His left hand held a shortwave radio; his right never strayed far from the rifle slung low across his back.

When he saw Nora approach, he gave a small nod and raised the radio to his lips.

"This is Ironcall to Alpha Talon. Confirm position and join us at Checkpoint Echo."

There was a moment of static. Then a response crackled back, distorted by distance but still legible.

"Alpha Talon copies. Ten minutes out. Holding pattern southwest ridge. Clear sky, no hostiles."

"Bring it in," Sico said, releasing the transmit button. "Echo perimeter is green."

The radio hissed softly as he clipped it back onto his belt, then turned to Preston, who stood nearby checking a field map stretched across the hood of a stripped-down APC.

"They've got a bird's eye on the southern slope," Preston murmured. "No sign of movement. Vault location should be a klick and a half west by southwest, just past the irradiated basin. We don't move until the Commandos arrive."

Sico nodded once, then turned toward Nora.

"You doing alright in there?"

She gave a silent thumbs-up.

It was strange—being so thoroughly invisible. Not just to the enemy, but to her own people. Even her breath sounded alien inside the helmet. Hollow. Mechanized. She was used to going silent, but never this silent.

She kept her attention on the horizon. The Sea was in front of them now—vast and quiet in the most terrifying way. The terrain looked like a wound. Smooth, unnatural glassed craters punched into the earth, veins of glowing green webbing through the rock. Pools of luminescent water bubbled softly between jagged formations, surrounded by clumps of glowing fungus and blackened metal twisted by the blast.

It was a place no one entered lightly.

Ten minutes passed.

Then twenty.

Then, just when the wind began to change again—carrying the sickly scent of rot and scorched rubber—a low hum cut through the sky. Distant at first. Then louder.

A black shape crested the road—a Truck. Sleek. Modified. Painted with the matte ash-gray patterns of the Freemasons Commandos, no markings save for the faint triangle sigil. The truck drove near them, then stop with precise control beside them. Then the Commandos get out from behind the truck.

They moved with the silence of veteran ghosts.

Each was clad in lightweight recon armor, dark and dust-camouflaged. Their helmets were rebreather-equipped, visors polarized against the glow of the Sea. No names. No insignias. Just call signs etched onto shoulder patches—"Blizzard," "Nightcap," "Reef," "Echo Nine," and a few others.

The leader was a tall woman with a lean build and a calm, calculating presence. She didn't waste time saluting. Just approached Sico with quiet precision.

"Commander," she said, offering a crisp nod.

"Major Reyes," Sico returned. "You're our scalpel today. We're moving light. Quick in, quick out. No quarter."

Reyes nodded. "We're prepped for vault infiltration. Seismic pings suggest a subterranean structure buried under the basin. EM spikes match Institute power profiles. Your intel solid?"

"It is," Sico said without missing a beat. "We're extracting a high-priority Institute prototype. Possible HVI inside. No survivors unless confirmed clean."

"Understood."

Reyes didn't ask questions. She turned and motioned to her squad. In an instant, they fanned out, forming a staggered line toward the valley edge. Their silence was terrifyingly efficient.

Preston moved to Nora's side and tapped her visor once.

"Time to walk."

She followed, blending in with the others, a phantom among phantoms.

The path into the Sea was jagged and brutal. Every step kicked up glowing dust. The HUD filtered the worst of the data—radiation levels redlined constantly, but the Shita suit held. Nora moved in lockstep with the others, rifle in hand, eyes sharp for movement. Her heart beat steady, but her breath felt too loud in her ears.

The Vault wasn't marked, of course. No surface entrance. Just a sunken crater near the far edge of the basin, where glassed rock gave way to something darker—a kind of angular protrusion half-buried in sand and ash, shaped too precisely to be natural.

Blizzard—one of the Commandos—paused and gestured toward it. "That's your entrance."

Reyes stepped beside him. "Scan it."

Echo Nine moved forward, unslung a palm-sized device, and pressed it against the darkened surface. A soft beep followed by a shimmer of light. Then a sudden mechanical shift.

A portion of the wall retracted.

A hidden Vault door, circular and crusted with corrosion, began to roll open with a groaning screech. The sound was otherworldly—like metal waking from a two-century coma.

Sico motioned them forward.

The Commandos slipped inside first. Then Reyes. Then Preston.

Nora followed.

Inside, the air changed again. Thicker. Claustrophobic. The entrance tunnel sloped downward in slow, spiraling curves, the metal walls cracked with age but still humming with power. Dim emergency lights flickered along the ceiling. The HUD lit with motion detection—faint signals. Possibly automated turrets. Maybe worse.

They moved as one, silent and swift. Preston gestured toward a security door on the left. "Looks like the living quarters. Could be where Talbot's stashed the prototype."

"Stack and breach," Reyes ordered.

Four Commandos lined up, rifles ready. One slapped a charge on the lock—magnetic, silent.

Three. Two. One—

Boom. The door burst inward.

The team surged through.

What followed was fast.

Gunfire erupted—short, precise bursts. Institute turrets deployed from the ceiling, but were shredded in seconds. A synth leapt from the shadows—blonde, armored, clearly Gen 3.

Blizzard gunned it down mid-air.

Nora moved with them, staying low, letting the chaos mask her presence. Her HUD pinged again—another signal, deeper inside.

"Got movement!" someone called.

They pressed into the next room.

And there he was.

Talbot.

He stood near a data terminal at the far end, lit by the flickering glow of a half-powered overhead light. His coat was dusted with ash, his hair longer than before, but his stance hadn't changed. Calm. Cold. Calculating.

Next to him stood the synth.

Nora's stomach turned.

It was Sico.

Or at least… it looked like him.

Every line of the face. The eyes. The build. The way he even held his weight on his left foot.

Flawless.

Too flawless.

"Freeze!" Reyes barked.

Talbot didn't.

He looked at them—and smiled.

"Too late," he said, and tapped a button.

The prototype synth turned toward them, eyes glowing faintly blue.

It blinked.

And spoke.

"Stand down. I am President Sico. Identify yourselves."

The voice was perfect. The inflection. The tone. Even the cadence of breath between words.

The synth's voice rang through the chamber like a cold echo—eerily calm, painfully familiar. Nora's pulse quickened inside the suit, but she held her ground, rifle raised, barrel trained on the doppelgänger standing at Talbot's side. Even with the visor filtering her field of vision, the illusion was flawless. It wasn't just Sico's face—it was his posture, his voice, his small, subconscious mannerisms.

If she hadn't known better, she might've hesitated too.

But the real Sico didn't.

"I'm the real Sico," he said firmly, stepping forward through the line of Commandos, his voice cutting clean through the tension. "Now I want you all to surrender—peacefully—before everything gets out of hand."

He didn't raise his weapon. He didn't bark commands. Just stood with that calm, measured presence that made him who he was—the kind of authority that came from years of brutal decisions, long nights, and tighter ropes than this.

But the synth stepped forward too.

"You are an impostor," it declared, its tone sharpening. "I am Sico—President of the Freemasons Republic, and the rightful leader to guide it into becoming a giant in the Commonwealth. My leadership is strategic. Logical. Free from the corruption of emotion."

The glow in its synthetic eyes brightened, flickering with the unmistakable hue of Institute programming. "So join me. All of you. Pledge your loyalty now, and together we will cleanse the surface of its inefficiencies. I was made for this. You… were not."

There was a second—barely a breath—where the entire room felt suspended.

Then Reyes moved.

She didn't shout.

She didn't blink.

She just raised her weapon and fired.

The synth's left shoulder exploded backward, ceramic plating and fluid hissing into the air as the plasma bolt struck true. The clone reeled but didn't fall, its other arm already jerking up to counter—return fire spilling from its rifle in blinding arcs of green.

Chaos erupted.

Talbot lunged backward toward a control panel, barking a command as the remaining synths surged forward—sleek, fast, brutal. Nora hit the ground, rolling sideways as plasma scorched the spot she'd been standing. Blizzard and Echo Nine returned fire instantly, weapons humming with deadly precision.

"Eyes on Talbot!" Sico yelled, ducking behind a console as bolts screamed past him. "He doesn't leave this Vault!"

Nora moved instinctively, sliding into cover behind a long-dead cryo chamber, her rifle braced tight against her shoulder. She watched the battlefield unfold like a surreal nightmare—Commandos engaging synths in fluid, lethal bursts, while the synth Sico pressed forward with uncanny precision. It didn't flinch. Didn't hesitate. It advanced like a man possessed.

But it wasn't a man.

It was a weapon.

And that weapon was gunning for the real Sico.

"Preston, with me!" Sico barked.

Preston broke cover, sidearm blazing, vaulting over a rail and landing in a crouch beside his commander.

Talbot screamed something incomprehensible over the noise—some desperate command in Institute code—and slammed his palm against a secondary terminal. A heavy shutter groaned open near the far wall, revealing another corridor lined with humming containment tubes.

Out of one burst a synth—larger than the rest, armored, wielding a minigun that began to spool with a rising, mechanical whine.

"DOWN!" Reyes shouted.

The squad scattered as the gun roared, tearing holes in the metal wall, riddling the floor with glowing projectiles. Nora dove for cover again, barely missing the arc of fire. She rolled onto her stomach and returned fire in bursts, aiming low to take out its legs.

Blizzard flanked left and tossed an EMP charge—clean, surgical. It landed near the big synth's feet and detonated with a crack of blinding light. The machine stumbled, jittering violently, and then collapsed, twitching.

"Synth Sico's pushing right!" Echo Nine called out. "He's trying to flank the real one!"

Nora was already moving.

She closed the gap, sprinting past smoldering terminals and broken bodies, flanking hard right to cut off the fake. The clone saw her, its glowing eyes narrowing as it turned. Their rifles snapped up at the same moment.

Hers fired first.

The bolt caught the synth in the hip, sending it staggering sideways. She fired again—chest. Once more—shoulder. It stayed up. Kept moving.

Too strong.

Too determined.

And then it lunged.

Its hand closed around her barrel and wrenched it downward, metal squealing against its grip. It slammed into her, knocking her backward into a wall with enough force to rattle her teeth inside the helmet. Her HUD flickered. Damage warning. Impact shock.

She drew her sidearm and fired point blank into its chest.

The synth reeled.

But so did she.

Then came Preston.

He crashed into the synth's side like a wrecking ball, shoulder-first, driving it into the opposite wall. He swung his combat knife in a savage arc, slashing through the synth's neck joint, sparks flying.

"I've had enough of you," he growled.

The synth responded by grabbing Preston's arm and slamming him into the floor.

And that was when Sico himself stepped in.

He drew the plasma dagger at his belt—his signature weapon, forged from salvaged Institute tech and power cells—and drove it into the synth's side. Deep. Right between the ribs.

The synth screamed.

It twisted, trying to turn the blade against him—but Sico twisted first. The synthetic skin peeled back. Internal servos burst with pressure. Sparks erupted in a blue-white spray.

And the clone collapsed.

Sico stood over it, breathing hard, eyes locked on its dying gaze.

"I don't lead because I'm perfect," he said. "I lead because I choose people over programming."

The eyes flickered. Dimmed.

Then died.

Behind them, the battle was turning.

Talbot, seeing the tide shift, made a break for the far hallway—alone now, his last synth protector down in a pool of liquefied circuitry. But he didn't get far.

Nora was already moving.

She chased him through the side corridor—narrow, dim, pipes hissing with steam. Talbot glanced back, saw her, and fired blindly. The bolt scorched her shoulder plate but didn't penetrate. She returned fire, aiming for the legs—intent on stopping, not killing.

A bolt took him in the thigh.

He dropped, screaming.

She closed the gap and slammed her boot into his wrist, kicking the pistol away. He tried to crawl. She leveled her rifle.

"Don't," she warned, voice thick through the rebreather.

Talbot froze.

Preston arrived seconds later, his weapon trained on the Institute defector.

"I always knew we'd find you," he said grimly.

Sico arrived last, flanked by Reyes and Blizzard. Behind them, the Vault's main room was silent now—dead synths cooling on the floor, the scent of scorched circuitry hanging thick in the air.

Talbot glared up at them, blood oozing between his fingers. "You think you've won?" he spat. "You've done nothing. The Institute doesn't stop. Shaun doesn't stop. For every one of me, there are five more."

"Maybe," Sico said. "But we just proved something."

He crouched beside the man, meeting his eyes.

"We proved that your gods can bleed."

Talbot laughed weakly. "You'll never stop them."

"No," Sico agreed. "But we'll make it hurt every time they try."

Reyes cuffed him without a word. The synth corpse nearby still smoked faintly, its features frozen in a rictus of twisted pride.

Preston stepped beside Sico.

"Think that's it?"

Sico looked around. The Vault was damaged, but not destroyed. And deep inside, there were probably more secrets—more nightmares.

"Not by a long shot," he said. "But it's a damn good start."

Nora stood off to the side, rifle lowered now, the adrenaline still working its way out of her limbs. For a moment, no one spoke.

Then Sico turned toward her.

"You saved more than just me today," he said quietly. "You saved the Republic."

She didn't reply. Just gave a slow, tired nod.

Then Reyes' voice crackled over the comms.

"Mission complete. Vault secured. Package detained. Target eliminated."

It was over.

At least, for now.

They began to exfil—moving in pairs back through the way they came, picking their way through the irradiated glass fields of the Glowing Sea.

________________________________________________

• 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:-