Chapter 64: Chapter 61

There was barely anything left of the old Institute after the bombs went off. Nothing but the console-reinforced elevator shaft and an irradiated and burnt out husk. The Yangtze’s big warhead proved useful after all, especially when cloned.

The representatives from the Minutemen, Railroad and Diamond City were busy processing the burning hole below them, while our captives were utterly broken now. It suited me fine in rebranding the Institute. The goal was to change the connotations of its name and if I’m lucky, we’d fully tarnish their legacy as well.

Since I couldn’t hold back knowledge of the Nexus indefinitely, a message needed to be made here. The Nexus needed to be a dangerous consideration to any outsiders who’re used to just waltzing in and taking what they wanted, like the Brotherhood of Steel.

Sentinels began swarming around the elevator, unsealing it and pouring down the elevator shaft to begin cleanup. More popped in from the teleporter carrying the materials needed for the renovation, along with Mr Handys and a bunch of Zetan drones.

Nobody could see the teleport beacon being smuggled in amongst the cloud of metal bodies and tentacles, which was how I’d be cheating my way to building up my Institute.

Not too quietly, a Sentinel on standby began recording for live streaming back in Caladan and the holding room containing the rest of the prisoners.

“As some of you know, the Nexus is against slavery, even on our enemies.” I found it hard not to grin. “However, the Institute must pay for its actions. And as practically everyone in the Institute had a hand in the callous treatment of the Commonwealth and the wider world above, by right of conquest, the Nexus will deliver the consequences of fucking with us.”

I turned my attention to the prisoners, particularly Shaun and the group of Institute seniors, and pointed down to the still burning hellhole. “The new Institute will be rebuilt shortly to serve its purpose as a correctional facility. All Institute humans at the age of sixteen and above are subject to two life sentences and will live out their sentences down there.”

The reactions I got were interesting but not surprising, but I continued on. “The sentences may be reduced by working for the Nexus. The amount of time reduced will depend on the nature and quality of the work put in. Should the sentences be completed, the prisoners will be released to the surface and treated as any other person in the Commonwealth, for better or for worse.”

That was the paltry carrot. And now, the beeg stick.

“While serving their sentences, prisoners can and will be volunteered for any task required by the Nexus, up to and including lethal experimentation.”

I gave a smile for the camera. “Just as the Institute was uncaring to the plight of the surface world, so now will the rest of the world be uncaring to the ordeals of this Institute.”

I turned again to Desdemona, then to General Becker, and then to Mayor Sacklen. “Are there any objections from the representatives?”

They shook their heads, the first two more cautiously than the mayor who was practically swiping his head left and right.

I gave Desdemona a nod. “Synths will get a one time amnesty, seeing how they were all programmed into their behaviour, but after this, the Nexus will treat them like any other person out in the Commonwealth, for better or for worse.”

She gave a silent nod in reply, but then again we had already discussed this before. This was just for the public’s benefit.

“The Institute will be open shortly. May its residents find their stay enjoyable.”

With my announcement ended, we left the place, leaving only the prisoners under guard. The glassed husk of the Institute should be rebuilt by the end of the day. Meanwhile, food and drink would be sent for the prisoners shortly if I remembered right, with orders for the bots to force feed them if needed.

None of them would be dying unless I allowed them to.

“Did you really mean it?” General Becker asked once we returned to Station 81. “About them finishing their sentences?”

I shrugged as I answered. “Yeah. For most of them, the lower level folk, if they play their cards right, they should be out in under ten, fifteen years. How they fare after release won’t be my problem unless they make it so.”

The grizzled veteran gave me a searching look before asking another question. “You have plans for their higher ups?”

“They’ll wish they weren’t taken alive,” I bluntly put with a dry smirk. “There won’t be any preferential treatment to worm my way into their tech, don’t worry.”

After saying goodbye to the representatives, I took the train back to Caladan with everyone else. The mood was celebratory, with troopers from both platoons sharing stories about the invasion of the Institute. Some of the adults were vindictively happy to be part of the downfall, having known or personally lost someone to synth infiltrators. All in all, everyone felt like the Institute’s demise was well deserved.

I got back to my office with my girls in tow, finding Gwen just finishing up on the last few bits of the Institute’s end.

“I’ve confirmed with the Minutemen and Diamond City to loan out Sentinels for synth detection,” she reported with a satisfied smile. “Claims for the lands between the CIT and the Nexus have also been secured, we can start sending out patrols immediately.”

It’s nice having an admin department.

“How’s the newcomer?” I asked as I plopped behind my desk.

Gwen handed my a thin file. “Her vitals are good, nothing to worry about health wise. While she remains anxious about finding her child, Nora is also curious of the world. I have Miranda and Rylee with her, filling her in.” She gave Piper a faint smile. “Nat’s still there as well, apparently helping to provide any information regarding Sev and the Nexus.”

As there were only four of us in my office, I guess it wasn’t surprising to see Piper and Cait, and then even Gwen, stripping off their clothes.

“All in all, everything has gone better than our projections.” Gwen cocked an eyebrow at me as she stood naked along with the two girls before me. All three were glisteningly damp between their legs. “It seems celebration are in order?”

It was hard to argue with that assessment, so I enjoyed the next hour de-stressing with my office team.

*****

Little more than a day was needed for Curie to study the results of the latest findings with what her codes could approximate to excitement. The research bots had compiled the Institute’s knowledge on synths and had quickly worked on that foundation with the aid of thorough testing from Blacksite Tleilax.

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It was just a simple code change, in the end. Something so small yet, upon realising it, so obvious. Free will, true free will was achievable for a synth without any need for invasive surgery or exotic implants. All they needed was a decently strong signal emitter to relay and trigger the code changes.

The resulting update would wipe the synth’s directives and hidden protocols, but left everything else intact. They’d be free from their oppressive programming while retaining their memories and personalities thus far.

It wasn’t necessarily the best outcome though, as the last of the synth raiders were showing. They had been given a full mindwipe of their time in Tleilax and their bodies fully restored by the healing arches before the emancipation and release. One understood what he had done as a raider and was wracked with guilt, sobbing and muttering in his cell. Another was apathetic about it, easily blaming everything on the forced programming. The last synth was just marvelling at his freed mind and broke into giggling as he jumped and spun about.

The varied behaviours troubled Curie, and she noted it down before sending the information over to the Railroad. Perhaps they’ll find a way to properly rehabilitate the synths under their care. Her part in this was done for now.

Curie ordered the execution of the insane and the apathetic synths. Sev had given her the discretion on handling the release, and she found that the only guilt-burdened one was fully absolved of his crimes against the Nexus. As per his request, the synth was granted a small parcel of land near the river to farm, along with the necessary materials to set up said farm. With the constant patrols about, there shouldn’t be any undue trouble from this one.

The corpses of the other two were carried out of their cells for recycling; synths made just as good fertiliser as humans.

With that out of the way, Curie sent the report to Sev and was happy to receive a reply almost immediately, greenlighting the next project.

She would be finally getting a human body.

Despite the time it took to finally get here, she was touched. Sev had been adamant that the free will issue needed to be solved first to ensure that Curie would remain her own person once she went organic. He didn’t care if the risks of being subverted were virtually nonexistent, he just wanted to make sure she remained an independent mind.

Curie made her way to the recently built underground laboratory complex practically next to Blacksite Tleilax, rather interestingly named Research Center Ix. She’d need to ask Sev where he got those names from.

The army of research bots had grown to properly staff the labs, and supposedly the more cooperative prisoners from the Institute would be working here as well. The place was packed with a mishmash of acquired technology, from the Zetan machinery to Institute data stacks to the more common wasteland terminals.

It was an awesome feat of brute forcing that the Sentinels transported everything they could from the Institute. Anything electronic was looted for any potential information, down to the digital clocks and watches. Servers and terminals were plugged into a robot’s power systems to keep it running while its colleagues excised it from the walls or ground to avoid any corruption of data. Every file and sheet of paper was secured, even the crumpled and torn trash, in the pursuit of finding anything useful. Containers were ransacked, the scratchings on the walls were scanned and logged with multispectrum sensors.

Though it took three hours to break the Institute, it only took another two for the swarm of Sentinels to pillage the place of every shred of information and relocate the hardware to Ix. All that was left was to milk out the data found in its residents’ brains, but that was something the Nexus had time for.

With robots buzzing this way and that around the four-storey complex, Curie waited at the teleport beacon for Sev to arrive. He came with Piper, Nat and Cait, all of them giving her warm smiles.

“So, today’s the big day huh?” Piper cheerily asked. Curie could only incline her head in agreement, her codes glitching from excitement.

Sev gestured with a hand. “Lead the way, Curie.”

They went to a large room housing the rebuilt third-gen synth constructor, complete with the vats of the Institute’s modified FEV solution. Though the Nexus would no longer be creating new synths on paper, this assembly would be kept operational for extreme medical cases, or in novel cases like Curie’s.

She had already prepared the design of her new body in advance, the idea stored in her memory ever since Sev brought up the possibility of transitioning into a synth body months ago. All that was needed was to activate the process and watch along with Sev and the girls as a new synth was created from the bones up to the flesh.

Once that process was done, Curie’s last act as a robot was to stand by the interface terminal and plug herself in. Sev had the honors of initiating the data transfer and backup.

“I’ll be seeing you in the flesh, Curie,” Sev joked, the last thing she heard before as her systems shut down.

Curie woke up to a slew of foreign sensations. There were no readings on her structural integrity, but she knew- she felt her whole body tingling. Her eyes opened to a plain visual feed, devoid of multispectral options. Her mind felt empty without the constant data from the Nexus’ network, or even her own body’s log. But yet it was also more cluttered as she processed subjective data from her new senses. There was no code to process what Curie was seeing, hearing or feeling. This was raw, arbitrary sensations.

She was standing in the pool of tailored FEV, she realised. Her body was naked, which was why she was feeling…cold.

Curie turned her head, saw the four people regarding her with looks her brain recognized as worry.

“Curie?” Sev’s voice was more than just digitized sound. It was filled with concern and compassion.

Curie blinked, not because she wanted to but because her body needed to. She blinked, then her sight became blurry and her mind was bombarded by an alien thing.

Emotions. She was feeling happy. Joyous. Ecstatic.

She was crying. Why was she crying?

“Sev,” She vocalized, hearing herself for the first time. It was a fragile voice, heavy with this emotion. Sev approached her, and she was vaguely aware of moving her legs towards him. Her arms were open and she met him with an embrace.

Curie objectively felt his warmth, and knew subjectively that the warmth gave her comfort. She cried some more, her body heaving with sobs. “Sev… Sev…” She couldn’t find the words, so she just said the only word that mattered to her at all. It was so good being in Sev’s arms, hearing him comfort her.

“You’re alright, you’re alright Curie. Welcome back.”

They kept the embrace for a while longer, the raw emotions smothering Curie’s rational mind. She wept with joy, felt the immense satisfaction of hearing herself call Sev’s name, basked in the sense of security he gave her.

So this was what it was like to be human.

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