Fallout 4: Rebirth At Vault 81

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Sico was alive. Wounded, yes. But not broken. She couldn't tell him what happened, not now — not with Shaun watching her every breath. But she would find a way. Somehow.

The next day came with a gray sky and a silence that felt too heavy for the Commonwealth.

Outside Sanctuary, the roads were quiet, but not peacefully so — more like the kind of hush that followed a brushfire, where even the wind seemed afraid to stir the ashes. The attempted ambush had rattled every part of Sico's network. Patrols had been redoubled. Supply routes altered. Preston and Sarah had been working shifts without rest since the night of the attack. Neither asked for a break.

And Sico, despite the stitched wound on his shoulder and the pressure still lingering in his ribs, refused to slow down.

He stood now in his office — a pre-war war room at the Freemasons HQ. The walls were lined with maps, comms panels, Brotherhood tactical reports, and pinned notes in messy handwriting. There was an empty mug on the console beside him, a faint stain of stale coffee at its bottom, forgotten hours ago. Preston stood across from him, arms folded, while Sarah ran a diagnostic on one of the signal intercept consoles.

"This wasn't a raider op," Preston was saying again, voice low. "You saw the sniper's elevation. That kind of perch takes planning, recon. And the ambush formation wasn't just good — it was trained."

"Trained by who, though?" Sarah muttered, still focused on her terminal. "Raiders don't take orders like that unless they're being paid. Or scared."

"They were being used," Sico said. He stepped back from the map he'd been studying — one that showed a series of Brotherhood equipment sightings across the last month. "But the sniper wasn't. That man knew what he was doing. He was patient. Clean. Brotherhood rifle, advanced optics. Someone trained him. Someone gave him that gear."

"And someone sent him," Preston added. "That's the part we need to figure out."

Before either of them could continue, the room crackled to life with a burst of static from the corner radio console.

Then a voice broke through — hurried, tense, but unmistakably familiar.

"Sico, are you there?"

Sico turned to the desk instantly. "Madison?"

He snatched the radio and pressed the receiver close. "Yes. I'm here. What is it?"

There was a pause on the other end, just long enough to let the urgency soak into the silence.

Then Dr. Madison Li's voice came through again, lowered to a whisper.

"I don't have much time," she said. "I'm still under observation. But you need to hear this."

Sico didn't breathe.

Preston and Sarah were already closing in, listening from behind his shoulders.

"The Brotherhood convened an emergency council late last night," Li continued. "Elder Maxson was furious. The attempted ambush on your convoy — the sniper, the missile — they traced the weapon signatures back to Brotherhood tech. Power cells, casing design, even the targeting software. But here's the catch…"

She hesitated. The sound of footsteps echoed faintly on her end, then stopped.

"They think the man responsible is someone named Grayson Talbot."

Sico's eyes sharpened. The name echoed in his mind like a struck bell. Sarah turned to look at him, frowning.

"He was one of them," Li said. "An elite — used to run recon and deep infiltration missions. Went MIA months ago during a operation near the Glowing Sea. The official file says he was likely dead, presumed KIA. But now they think he's freelance… using Brotherhood gear… acting outside the chain of command."

"Why?" Sico asked, his voice quiet but hard. "Why come after me?"

"That's what Elder Maxson wants to know. But listen to me — if the Brotherhood finds Talbot first, they won't ask questions. They'll execute him. Silently. No tribunal. No report. He'll vanish into a classified grave and you'll never find out who sent him."

Sico clenched his jaw. "Then I can't let them find him first."

"No. You can't," Li said. "Because if Talbot is freelancing with that level of tech, he's not working alone. Someone is supplying him. Someone who has resources beyond scavengers or mercs. I can't prove it yet, but… Sico, this stinks of the Institute."

A beat of cold silence followed.

Then she added, almost apologetically, "I'm risking a lot contacting you. But as I was part of you guys and undercover here, I should contact you this kind of information."

Sico exhaled. "Thank you, Madison."

Her voice softened. "Watch your back, President. And whatever happens… don't underestimate Talbot. He was dangerous before the implants."

The signal cut.

The silence in the room afterward was suffocating.

Preston was the first to speak. "If this Talbot guy's real — and has Institute tech layered over Brotherhood training — that's not just a rogue agent. That's a one-man war machine."

Sarah stepped forward, tapping a few commands into the signal console. "We might be able to intercept more Brotherhood chatter. If they're on the hunt, they'll be using encrypted bursts to coordinate patrols."

"Do it," Sico said. "And prioritize triangulating last known sightings of Talbot. We need to get ahead of this."

"But how?" Preston asked. "Even if we find him — what's the plan? Bring him in? Interrogate him?"

Sico nodded slowly. "Exactly. He's the thread. We pull it, we find who's on the other end. Institute. Rogue Brotherhood cell. Maybe both. I don't care. I want names."

He turned back toward the map board. His wound ached when he moved, but he didn't let it show.

"What about Nora?" Sarah asked suddenly, quiet.

Sico looked over his shoulder.

Sarah's eyes were steady. "She's inside. We both know it."

Preston shifted uncomfortably. "We can't contact her. Not without burning her cover."

Sico nodded. "I know. But she'll do what she can. She always has."

He leaned on the table now, hands gripping the edge.

Sico's fingers tightened on the edge of the war map, the veins on his hand taut and pale. The room had gone silent again, but this time it was a silence loaded with implication — like the moment before a mine clicks under your boot. Preston stood nearby, brow furrowed, arms still crossed but his posture now rigid with suspicion. Sarah hadn't spoken in nearly a minute. She stood with her hand on the edge of the console, her gaze fixed not on the screens, but on Sico — as if watching to see how far the fire would spread behind his eyes.

Sico broke the silence.

"But the question is," he said slowly, "why do they want to kidnap me?"

He wasn't asking it rhetorically. He asked it like a man digging for the bottom of a grave he suspected was already built for him.

Preston shifted, leaning his hip against the edge of the map table. His voice was quiet, but certain.

"Maybe… they want your DNA. Your voice patterns. Facial structure. The way you move. All of it. Get that data, and they could build a synth that looks and talks exactly like you."

Sico stared at him. No interruption. No protest.

Preston continued. "And once they have that — they don't need you anymore."

Sarah's voice followed, grim but unflinching. "They replace you. Send the synth back here in your place. Tell the public you're recovering from the ambush. Limit contact. Control the flow of information."

Preston nodded. "And once that synth Sico is in command, it's only a matter of time. They don't need to send armies. They don't need vertibirds or plasma rifles. Just orders."

Sarah stepped closer to the map table now, her fingers brushing one of the perimeter markers on the paper. "The synth would start promoting people… quietly. Strategic placements. Reassignments. Maybe someone new in logistics. Someone else in security. All vetted, all loyal — but not to you."

"To them," Sico finished, eyes narrowing.

He stepped back from the table, as if the idea itself were toxic to be too close to. He could feel it crawling into his thoughts — the logic of it. The elegance of it. This wasn't brute force. It wasn't like the raiders or the Brotherhood charging in with power armor and fanatics.

This was slow. Precise. A parasite, not a predator.

It made his stomach churn.

"And once the chain of command is hollowed out," Preston said, voice tighter now, "the Institute would control everything — from inside. Every settlement under the Freemasons' banner would follow your lead, not knowing it's not you anymore. We wouldn't even know, not at first."

Sarah added, "And if someone got suspicious? Dissenters? They'd be replaced too. Or made to vanish."

Sico turned away and walked slowly to the window. The glass was thick — old pre-war security shielding, bomb-resistant and smoked for privacy — but he could still see the sun rising behind the clouds. Just pale enough to backlight the jagged lines of the Sanctuary wall and the silhouettes of two guards pacing the inner perimeter.

He rubbed a hand down his face. "They wouldn't need to kill me. Not if they were that confident they could match me."

Sarah said quietly, "They almost did kill you, though. That sniper wasn't aiming to injure."

"No," Sico muttered. "Maybe not."

He exhaled slowly, then looked back toward them. "Maybe Talbot wasn't sure he could secure the DNA or the profile data while I was alive. Or maybe the first phase failed — the missile missed. The sniper didn't. So they fell back on Plan B. Kill me. Replace me."

Preston nodded grimly. "Or maybe Talbot had orders to take you alive but was authorized to eliminate if extraction failed. Doesn't matter. Point is, we can't trust what the original objective was. Only that it was Institute clean."

Sico started pacing now. His limp from the wound was still there, but controlled. The pain hadn't gone away — he was just used to overriding it now. It moved through him like an old memory: familiar, sharp, and always at the edge of everything.

Sico's boots made a low, tired rhythm as he paced the length of the war room. Each step echoed slightly off the reinforced walls, the hum of the power cores behind the comm panels thrumming like a nervous pulse. The ache in his ribs deepened with every movement, a slow-burning reminder of how close he'd come to never standing in this room again. But pain was easy to compartmentalize now. What haunted him wasn't the bullet — it was the idea of being replaced.

He turned sharply, the limp a little more pronounced in that pivot, and looked at Preston.

"I need you to contact Ronnie Shaw," he said, voice steady but heavy with restrained tension.

Preston straightened at the mention of the Castle's old warhorse. "Ronnie? Why?"

Sico walked back to the map table and tapped his finger over the red-dotted supply route that had led him back to Sanctuary — the one that had almost become a kill box. "Because someone leaked my return path. The missile strike, the sniper ambush — all of it was too coordinated. And it wasn't just Institute precision. Someone local gave them my schedule. The exact route. The timing."

He paused, making sure his words settled before continuing. "I want Ronnie to dig into the records down there. Movement reports. Courier logs. Every scrap of detail passed through the Castle's relay towers. She's got a good head for rooting out rot. Tell her I want names. Anyone who touched the comms logs that week. Anyone who even glanced at my travel orders."

Preston didn't hesitate. "Understood."

"I want a full report by the end of the week. No gaps. No assumptions."

He turned to Sarah next. She was already watching him, brow creased, eyes sharp behind the faint glow of her holotab's interface. She didn't need to ask what was coming — she'd already begun typing before he spoke.

"I need the Commandos mobilized," Sico said. "Quietly. Pick a unit you trust. No one green. No one unsure. I want a five-man team out there by nightfall."

"Objective?" she asked, already narrowing the search parameters through the interface. "Talbot?"

Sico nodded. "I want him tracked. Intercepted if possible — but not killed. Not unless they have no choice. I want him alive. If Madison's right and he's ex-Brotherhood running with Institute tech, he's the thread. Pull it carefully, and we might unravel the whole damn thing."

Sarah adjusted a few sliders on the terminal. "What do we know about his last position?"

Sico tapped the map again, this time at a cross-section of old train lines just north of the Glowing Sea. "That's where he was last seen by the Brotherhood. Madison said he went MIA near there. He could've gone underground. Or been extracted. Either way, that's our starting point."

Sarah frowned, scanning the terrain. "That's feral territory. And full of radiation pockets."

"Yeah," Sico said. "Perfect place for someone who doesn't want to be found."

She nodded, her fingers still flying over the interface. "I'll assign Harlow's squad. They've run ops in the Sea before. Good at dealing with unpredictable terrain."

"I want them outfitted with pulse rifles, stealth field gear, and enough rad protection to walk into hell and come back with a tan."

Sarah cracked a dry smile. "You got it."

Sico exhaled, and for a moment, let the weight of the decisions settle across his shoulders. He wasn't just trying to plug a hole in the dam anymore — he was preparing for the flood.

The Brotherhood was compromised. The Institute was on the move. And someone, somewhere inside their own ranks, had sold out his position.

The line between enemy and ally had blurred. Trust, always the rarest currency in the wasteland, was now practically extinct.

And yet… he had no choice but to spend it.

He moved to the corner console and keyed in a direct line to the outer watchtower. The radio crackled twice before connecting.

"Outpost One, this is HQ. Status report."

"HQ, this is One," came the reply. "All quiet. Patrols rotating on schedule. No contact since last sweep."

Sico held the button. "Good. Keep your eyes open. I want a triple sweep every two hours, randomized pattern. We've got a ghost with a Brotherhood rifle and a grudge. Don't give him a second shot."

"Copy that."

He clicked the receiver off and leaned against the console, staring out the window again. The mist had thickened, a pale fog rolling over the distant treetops, making Sanctuary's outer walls look like a fortress rising from a forgotten world.

Preston stepped up beside him. "You think this is the beginning of something bigger?"

Sico didn't look at him. "No."

Preston looked sideways. "No?"

Sico's jaw clenched. "I think it's already been going on for months. We're just finally seeing the edges."

A quiet beat passed.

Then Sarah's voice came from behind, calm but alert. "Commando team is mobilizing. Harlow's prepping gear now. They'll head out by twenty-hundred."

Sico nodded without turning. "Good. Have them keep a radio dead zone when they reach the edge of the Sea. No signals in or out unless it's emergency bandwidth. I don't want the Institute tracing chatter."

Sarah made a noise of assent, already relaying the command.

Preston stepped back from the window. "I'll head to the Castle in the next hour. Might take the vertibird, if weather permits."

Sico looked over. "Don't let anyone else know the reason for your visit. Not even Ronnie. Not until you're there."

"I'll play it close."

They exchanged a look — not just of agreement, but of shared weariness. The kind that came from months of trust forged in the fires of retreat and counterattack.

Then, like a shift in the atmosphere, the tone in the room hardened.

Because this was real now.

The shadows weren't just moving beyond the walls.

They were crawling up from within them.

That evening, as the fog thickened and the sun dipped behind a horizon of broken pre-war silhouettes, Sico stood on the command balcony overlooking Sanctuary's central square.

Below, families moved between the mess hall and the medical wing, children ran with makeshift toys, and engineers hauled salvaged panels across scaffolding. Life moved on — it always did — but it moved on the edge of a knife.

Beside him, a pair of Commandos passed in full gear, silent and focused, heading toward the waiting transport.

Sico watched them go, then turned back toward the upper platform and found Sarah waiting.

"They're ready," she said.

"I know."

She studied his face. "You don't have to carry all of it alone, you know."

"I know that too," he replied.

But he didn't stop. Not even when his side throbbed or when the night brought dreams of synth replicas with his voice and smile.

Because if Talbot really was a one-man war machine… Sico had to become something else. Not as a machine , but as a shield or a wall. Become the last line between the Freemasons Republic and the long, cold hand reaching out from beneath the Institute.

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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:-