Fallout 4: Rebirth At Vault 81

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Later that night, when the Freemasons HQ had gone quiet and the wind had softened outside, Sico sat alone in the dim orange glow of his office heater, staring at the terminal screen. He'd pulled up the archived radio encryption logs from a month back to search a suspicious log.

The next morning broke like a whispered warning.

Cold again. Bitter in a way that made the steel pipes sweat and the old hinges groan when doors were pushed open. The sun hadn't so much risen as it had reluctantly peeled itself over the edge of the gray horizon—just enough to cast a dim, cold light across the settlement, where snow still clung in thick patches and the roads had turned to icy veins of frozen slush and gravel.

Inside the Freemasons HQ, the war room's heater hummed steadily in the corner, but it couldn't drive out the cold that had settled in Sico's chest.

He stood by the long operations table, hands tucked behind his back, staring down at a set of clipped together documents—manifest scans, encryption logs, and a newly printed batch of tower access reports. Magnolia was on the other side of the table, coat still buttoned and scarf wrapped tight around her throat, a hot tin mug of tea steaming in her gloved hands.

Albert leaned over a small side terminal, eyes narrowed behind his glasses as he combed line-by-line through a spreadsheet of comms frequencies and system ID pings. He hadn't slept much—none of them had—but the analyst in him was alive, alert, and stubborn. His left knee bounced under the desk as he scanned.

"See anything?" Sico asked without turning his head.

"Not yet," Albert murmured. "There's a spike in Tower Two usage last week. One of the maintenance teams asked for a long-range override during calibration. Logged by Simmons. I already talked to her this morning. Said it was routine."

"You believe her?" Sico asked.

Albert shrugged. "I've known Simmons months. Doesn't mean anything. But no. I don't think it's her."

Magnolia sipped her tea, watching them both.

"No outlier IDs in the relay scans," she added. "But we're only halfway through the last two weeks' logs. If the mole is smart, they're not using Sanctuary IDs. They're piggybacking off command-level signals."

"Which narrows it to what?" Sico asked.

"About eight people," Magnolia said. "Nine, if you include yourself."

Sico exhaled slowly, rubbing his temple. "Of course."

The static of silence settled again—tired, tight, and tense.

Finally, Sico reached for the radio on the edge of the table.

It was a smaller handheld unit, patched into the local GuardNet frequency. He keyed it open and leaned in close.

"Commander Sarah, you on post?"

There was a short pause.

Then Sarah's voice crackled back, firm and alert even over the fuzz. "On the north wall. Just finished watch rotation."

"Good. I need a favor," Sico said.

"Go ahead."

"I want the guard teams today tighter than usual. No half-measures. Tell them to watch everything—every runner, every caravan, every courier bird. Anyone stops too long at a gate, they get flagged. Anyone hanging around the purification station without cause? Pulled and questioned."

Sarah's voice came back without delay. "Purified water station, in particular?"

"Yeah," Sico said. "We don't know how much Drenner's people already know. But that station is the only choke point left between us and famine. If they can't hit the convoys, they'll go for the source."

"I'll double patrols," she said. "You want mounted support too?"

"Just the bikes," Sico replied. "Keep a low profile. I want awareness, not alarm."

"Understood."

Sico paused. Then: "Tell your squads not to be gentle if they find anything."

Sarah's voice didn't flinch. "They won't be."

The transmission clicked off, and Sico set the radio down.

Magnolia gave him a look. "You really think they'd try something inside the walls?"

"I think they already did," Sico said.

He turned back toward the table and leaned over the operations map again. "That radio slate didn't walk out of here on its own. It means whoever the mole is, they have routine access. Familiarity. And confidence."

Albert spoke up. "The kind of person who blends in."

"Exactly."

He tapped a spot on the map—Sanctuary's northeast quadrant. "This is where we'll start. Logistics barracks, old relay tower, the water station. We'll rotate watchers. No interrogations. Just quiet tails. I want to see who lingers where they shouldn't."

"Got it," Magnolia said.

"I'll check tower access logs for overrides in the last thirty days," Albert added. "See if any out-of-pattern clearances were issued. Night shifts, late pings, stuff like that."

Sico nodded.

For a moment, it felt like progress. Real progress.

But deep inside, he could feel the trap still lingering.

Whoever the traitor was—they hadn't made their last move.

The morning hours dragged by with the weight of sleepless urgency.

Inside the Freemasons HQ, the air had grown thick—not just from the lack of ventilation, but from tension. The kind that stuck in the joints, the kind that made every scratch of a pen sound louder than it should. The kind that meant people were starting to realize that this wasn't just a leak.

It was rot.

Sico leaned against the steel frame of the window, looking down at the square below. The courtyard was quiet this morning—too quiet. A few figures moved about: a pair of scouts striding across the snow-packed flagstones, a Water Division runner moving with deliberate pace toward the supply house, and two guards chatting at the edge of the fence line. Nothing seemed amiss.

But then again, it wouldn't—not if the mole had spent months perfecting their steps.

Behind him, Albert was muttering numbers under his breath, cross-referencing tower logs with command clearance times. Magnolia had switched tactics—scanning the personnel transfer roster for the last sixty days, eyes narrowed like a hawk as she picked through names.

Sico's gaze dropped to a thin plume of smoke curling from one of the chimneys by the water purification building. Steam, maybe. Or someone trying to stay warm on post. But he didn't trust it. Not anymore.

He turned away from the window.

"Keep at it," he said quietly.

Albert barely glanced up, muttering, "Already halfway through Tower Three's records."

"Give me ten minutes," Sico added. "I'll be in the radio room."

Magnolia nodded without a word.

Sico stepped into the hallway, boots thudding softly against the wooden floor. The Freemasons' upper corridor felt like a tomb—no footsteps, no voices, just the creak of aging beams and the cold whisper of the wind outside rattling against the glass.

The radio room was two doors down. It had once been a Masonic archive, full of dusty ledgers and ceremonial records. Now it held four reinforced desks, a high-powered transmitter, and an arsenal of modified signal filters duct-taped to the walls like makeshift armor. Sico shut the door behind him, sat at the far desk, and keyed the unit to MacCready's encrypted frequency.

The moment he pressed the transmission lever, he could feel the edge return to his blood.

"MacCready," he said, voice low. "You out there?"

Static hissed back at him.

He waited.

Then the transmission crackled again—light at first, just a whisper. Then sharper.

"…Was wondering when I'd hear from you."

Sico leaned forward, twisting the dials to pull the signal in more clearly.

"Report," he said.

"Still dark," MacCready replied, his voice thinner now, stretched by distance and the signal bounce off the eastern ridge. "But I've got movement. Confirmed, now."

Sico's eyes narrowed. "Talk to me."

"They're using the relay," MacCready said. "Not often—three, maybe four times a day. Short bursts. Tight-bandwidth signals, encrypted like hell. But they're coming from one direction."

"Where?"

MacCready hesitated. Then, slowly: "Somewhere southeast of Lynn Woods. I tracked a patrol yesterday. Two men, both carrying suppressed rifles and wearing mismatched armor. Raiders, but clean. Too clean. One of them was wearing a chest plate with a Minutemen tag painted over."

Sico's knuckles whitened on the console. "He's disguising his scouts."

"Exactly," MacCready said. "They weren't scavenging. They were placing something. Small. Buried it under the snow near a ridge."

"Another cache?"

"Maybe," MacCready said. "But I didn't check it. Wasn't worth blowing cover."

Sico nodded to himself. "And the pad?"

MacCready sighed. "Still haven't cracked it. But I sent it north with one of mine—Keen. He's meeting with an old RobCo tech in Somerville. Quiet guy. If anyone can extract the data without frying it, it's him."

"You trust him?"

"With my life," MacCready said. Then, almost grimly: "That's not a phrase I use lightly anymore."

Sico's voice dropped. "You think Drenner's prepping for another hit?"

"I don't think he ever stopped prepping," MacCready said. "I think the last ambush was just a calibration. He was testing your response time, your tactics. Now he's moving slower. Smarter."

"And we've got a mole feeding him play-by-play."

"Right," MacCready said. "Which means this isn't just a power grab. This is sabotage."

Sico exhaled, cold breath fogging the radio's faceplate.

"You've got a direction," he said. "How close do you think you are to his actual base?"

"Close," MacCready answered. "I've seen runners. No convoy—just pairs. Couriers. They travel southeast, down the old ruins between the river line and the woods. They disappear at a drop point near a burned-out train depot."

Sico's mind turned the map over in his head. The old depot south of Lynn Woods was crumbling even before the bombs. Most people avoided it now. Radiation pockets, collapsed tunnels. But it had underground infrastructure. Basements. Rails. Vaulted sub-floors.

"Could be where he's holed up," he said quietly.

"Could be," MacCready echoed. "Or it could just be his door."

Sico didn't speak for a long moment.

Then: "I want you to stay on them. Don't engage. Don't spook."

"Wasn't planning on it," MacCready replied. "But if I get a window—"

"If you get a window," Sico cut in, "you mark it and report back. We're not sending you in alone."

There was a silence on the line.

Then MacCready said, "Copy that."

Sico leaned back.

The weight in his chest hadn't lifted. But now it had a shape.

He clicked off the radio and returned to the operations room. Albert was now cross-referencing water station logs with the delivery manifests. Magnolia looked up as Sico entered.

"Well?" she asked.

"He's close," Sico said. "MacCready's tracking their courier network southeast of Lynn Woods. Drenner's got them moving between a set of relay points—lightly armed, quiet. All of it leading to the train depot."

Albert frowned. "Isn't that a dead zone?"

"It is," Sico replied. "Which is why it's perfect."

Magnolia folded her arms. "So what now?"

Sico glanced at the time.

"Now we finish what we started. We find our rat, we plug the hole, and then—" he pointed to the map—"we cut out Drenner at the root."

Time passed differently when you were hunting ghosts.

The hours stretched. Not because they were slow, but because they were full—packed with a thousand decisions and a thousand questions, each heavier than the last. Inside the Freemasons HQ, Sico, Magnolia, and Albert had turned the command center into a hive of silent calculation. Logs were spread across the table like the aftermath of a storm—paper edges curling with moisture, ink bleeding from gloved fingers, the scent of scorched coffee forever hanging in the air.

The list of suspects had narrowed. Fewer than a dozen names remained.

Magnolia had cross-checked guard access to the uplink towers with personal movement schedules. Albert had overlaid that with tower diagnostics and encryption pulls. It had taken half a day, but patterns were starting to form—subtle ones, the kind you didn't see unless you were already suspicious.

"There's something wrong here," Albert muttered, tracing his finger across a chart of daily delivery manifests from the purified water station. "Three entries, all signed off by the same person. Times don't match up. Look—this manifest says the east gate convoy left at 0500, but the actual patrol logs say 0615."

"Could be a clerical error," Magnolia offered, but her tone lacked commitment.

Albert shook his head. "Not just that. Look at this." He flipped to another page. "Radio slate requisition from last week. One slate issued, no return logged. But the assignment officer marked it returned—only it was signed by someone else. Someone who wasn't even on rotation that day."

Sico leaned forward.

"Who signed it?"

Albert hesitated, then turned the paper around.

"Chris."

The name hit the table like a dropped wrench.

Magnolia blinked. "Chris? Chris who?"

"Chris Beckett," Albert said, his voice low. "Head of the purified water station."

Sico's eyes sharpened. He remembered the man—mid-thirties, tall, with a narrow face and a quiet, tired sort of charm. Chris had always been reliable. Or at least, he had seemed that way. Never spoke much at meetings. Preferred to keep his head down and his station clean. He'd taken over water logistics a few months after the old head technician retired with lung damage.

Magnolia frowned. "That doesn't make sense. He doesn't have encryption access."

"He doesn't need it," Albert said. "He's not the kind who transmits. He's the kind who passes."

Sico straightened slowly.

"What else do we have on him?"

Albert pulled up another screen. "He logged three unexplained maintenance trips to Tower Three over the past month. All filed under emergency inspection. All just before convoy departures."

"Who approved those?"

"No one," Albert said. "He just went. He wrote them in after the fact."

Magnolia was already moving, pulling the guard post log from the same days. "Wait…here. Right here. Tower Three post was pulled for routine inspection on those same mornings. Twenty-minute gaps where no eyes were on the uplink."

Sico's expression was stone.

"He slipped in. Piggybacked the signal."

Magnolia whispered, "That's how Drenner kept up."

There was silence. Thick, bitter silence.

Albert didn't look up. "He's still on station?"

"Should be," Magnolia said. "He doesn't rotate until second watch."

Sico didn't speak.

He moved instead—pushing back from the table, grabbing his coat off the hook, pulling on his gloves.

"I want him brought in," he said. "Quiet. No alarm. No scene."

Albert stood. "You want us with you?"

Sico shook his head. "No. I go in alone first. If he runs, you block the north corridor."

Magnolia met his eyes. "And if he doesn't run?"

"Then we find out how long he's been bleeding us."

The walk to the purification station felt longer than usual.

Sanctuary had grown quiet again, its people moving like shadows across the snow-dusted roads. The recent ambush had shaken them, even if most didn't know the details. Fear had a way of moving faster than facts.

Sico passed a group of farmers dragging tarp-covered crates toward the mess hall, nodding as he moved through. Past the armory, past the eastern supply yard. A cold wind pushed up the back of his coat, but he ignored it.

He reached the station at quarter past noon.

The building itself was a repurposed treatment plant—brick, squat, with thick steel piping running from the adjacent reservoir basin. Two guards stood at the front door, one with a shotgun, the other with a clipboard and a steaming mug.

They straightened when they saw him.

"President," the older one said.

Sico gave a nod. "Is Chris inside?"

"Yes, sir. Last we saw, he was in Bay Two running a filter test."

Sico stepped inside without another word.

The air in the station was warmer, humid with chemical vapor and heated pipes. Machinery whirred softly in the background, and the smell of wet copper and chlorine tingled faintly in the back of his throat.

Bay Two was off to the left.

Sico moved quietly. Footsteps soft.

Chris Beckett stood with his back to the door, wearing a rubber-aproned uniform and holding a clipboard in one hand. He was checking pressure gauges along the side of the new filtration column. Methodical. Calm. Almost too calm.

Sico stopped in the doorway.

"Chris."

The man turned. His expression shifted instantly—from the automatic weariness of a worker to the wary, tight smile of someone who'd just been caught.

"President," Chris said, offering a short nod. "Didn't expect you down here today."

"Didn't expect to be here," Sico said. "But I've got questions."

Chris turned slightly, still holding the clipboard.

"Sure. What about?"

Sico didn't answer right away. He stepped forward—slow, casual, but closing the gap.

"Radio slates," he said. "Manifest errors. Missing encryption pings."

Chris blinked once. "Sorry?"

Sico's voice sharpened. "You signed off a radio slate that never got returned. Same day we lost a convoy. You also made three unscheduled trips to Tower Three. All just before encrypted signals went out."

Chris didn't move.

Didn't speak.

His fingers clenched slightly around the clipboard.

Sico kept going. "We know it's you, Chris."

Still, the man said nothing.

Just stared at him, jaw twitching.

Then—too suddenly—he moved.

Chris turned fast, threw the clipboard into a nearby control panel, and bolted for the side exit.

Sico was faster.

He slammed into Chris before he reached the door, pinning him against the wall with a hard shoulder, elbow pressed into the man's throat. Chris struggled, boots skidding across wet tile, one fist swinging wildly. Sico caught the punch, twisted the wrist, and drove him down hard against the ground.

Guards rushed in seconds later.

"Don't move!" one shouted.

Chris didn't. He was breathing hard now, blood running from his nose where he'd hit the floor. But his eyes were still defiant. Bitter. Like he wanted Sico to hit him.

Sico knelt beside him.

"How long?" he asked.

Chris spat blood.

"How long?"

Chris coughed. "Two months," he whispered. "You think The Freemasons Republic's so clean, so perfect. But you've made enemies. You're just too arrogant to see them."

Sico didn't flinch.

He just stared.

And then he stood.

"Take him to the holding cell," he said to the guards. "Now."

They hauled Chris up by both arms and dragged him out.

The last thing Sico saw as the door closed behind them was the man's eyes—burning not with shame, but fury. A fury that hadn't started overnight.

Back in the war room, Sico stood over the map again.

Magnolia and Albert looked up as he entered.

"Well?" Magnolia asked.

Sico set the confiscated ID badge on the table.

"It's him."

Albert looked pale. "Chris? But—he's been with us since—"

"I know," Sico said. "That's how he got in deep. He started small—logs, manifests, slate access. Then Drenner brought him in."

Magnolia looked away.

"How long?" she asked.

"Two months," Sico said. "Maybe more."

Albert sat down, slowly. "What now?"

Sico didn't answer right away.

Then, finally, he said, "Now we make an example."

He reached for the radio.

"Sarah, this is Sico. Assemble the command staff at the square. Twenty minutes."

"Copy that," came the reply.

Magnolia looked up sharply. "You're going public with it?"

"We have to," Sico said. "People are afraid. They need to see this handled. Decisively."

Albert nodded. "Then let's make it clear."

Twenty minutes later, the courtyard was full.

Snow drifted softly, settling on shoulders and hoods as the townsfolk gathered. Soldiers lined the square. Command staff stood in a loose half-circle near the stage.

Chris Beckett was dragged out in shackles, face bruised, lip swollen, hands bound in thick cord.

Sico stepped forward, voice clear and cold.

"This man," he said, "was one of us. He worked among you. Ate beside you. Slept under the same roof. And he betrayed us. For months, he leaked convoy data to our enemies. His actions cost lives. Good people. People we can't get back."

Murmurs spread.

A few gasps. One shout of fury.

Sico raised his hand.

"We will not tolerate betrayal. Not here. Not ever."

Then he nodded to the firing squad.

Five soldiers stepped forward. Chris didn't beg. He didn't speak. He just stared straight ahead.

The shots rang out like thunder.

And then it was over.

Sico turned back to the crowd.

"There is still work to be done. But today—we've closed one more hole. And from this day forward, the Freemasons Republic watches its own."

The crowd began to disperse in silence, not with cheers or cries, but with the kind of quiet that comes after something irrevocable. Snow crunched beneath boots, soft and slow, as people drifted back to their duties—farmers to the greenhouses, engineers to the turbines, parents to their children waiting just out of sight. No one said much. They didn't need to. The air carried it for them.

Sico remained where he stood, just beyond the edge of the platform, the cold creeping through the seams of his gloves. The barrel smoke had already drifted away. All that lingered now was the scent of gunpowder and the finality of truth.

Magnolia stepped beside him, arms crossed, face unreadable.

"Think they understand?" she asked.

Sico didn't answer right away. He watched a child—couldn't have been more than eight—clutch her mother's coat with one hand and stare back at the square, her eyes too old for her face.

"They do," he said at last. "Maybe not with words. But they understand."

Albert stood nearby, his glasses fogged. He didn't look up from the clipboard in his hand.

Sico turned back toward the HQ, but not before casting one final glance toward the spot where Chris had fallen. The snow was already covering the blood. Nature was quick like that—trying to bury things before they could stain too deeply.

________________________________________________

• 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:-