Nora stirred and groaned as she started to awaken. She opened her eyes for the briefest of moments before squeezing them shut to block out the painfully sharp brightness. Her temples were throbbing painfully while her mouth felt dried out and ashy. Nora started moving one arm to put a hand over her eyes before feeling metal digging into her skin. "Oh right, handcuffs."
"You waking up now Blue?" Piper's voice sounded tentative and more then just a bit scared. "I'm getting there, just give me a minute okay?" Nora made an effort to appear confident and assure Piper at the same time, but she had a bad feeling about their current situation. She went much slower this time as she opened her eyes again to try and let them acclimate a little bit at a time. Once fully open, she started looking around her to see where exactly they where and what condition they were in.
Piper was only sitting a few inches away and her jacket's creases looked as though she had been pressed against something or someone. Both of them had their ankles tied together with a corded rope and Nora could see the reporter's wrists were handcuffed in the exact same way as her own. The room itself was the biggest shock and surprise to her however.
She had traveled throughout the Commonwealth since leaving the Vault she had been frozen in and everything had been filthy. Even in places like Diamond City or Goodneighbor, the beacons of what passed for civilization these days, had been filled with clutter and debris. It was like everyone had stopped bothering to clean up after themselves after the bombs had gone off. And those areas looked pristine in comparison to all of the abandoned ruins and towns she had passed through.
But this room... it was the first place that resembled anything like the Old World. The carpet wasn't packed with dirt, the glass was clear and the walls had unstained blue paint on them. After everything she had seen, it felt like walking into some kind of clean-room. In a single word, this place was... sterile.
Piper and Nora were stuck in some kind of smaller enclosure in the room itself. There was a kind of sliding metal door off to their right attached to a single large glass pane that curved into the wall on her left. She could see some desks and a few uniquely shaped computer terminals on the other side, but the room itself was empty except for the two of them. Nora turned her attention away from the room outside as she looked at the scared woman sitting next to her "Are you all right Piper?"
"My head is pounding and I could use a drink but I'm not hurt... Where the hell are we?" Nora hesitated as she considered pretending she didn't know or outright lying, but Piper had a knack for sniffing out the truth. She didn't want to cause her to panic, but telling Piper the truth was the only real choice. "Look at those terminals out there, do you recognize them?" Piper shook her head no before Nora continued "I saw one of those a few days ago in Fort Hagen. Kellogg was using it to communicate with the Institute, these are their computers. If I had to guess, that's where we are."
Nora could see Piper beginning to tremble as she looked around the room, a new-found horror beginning to settle in. Nora couldn't pretend that she wasn't afraid, but she hadn't grown up living with tales of the Institute like Piper had. The very words 'The Institute' were only spoken with fear and at your own peril. A mysterious entity lurking in the shadows of everyone who lived in the Commonwealth. Living your life afraid of waking up and finding your family had been replaced by machines or having people you knew just up and vanish in the night to never be seen again. Whatever goals they had, whatever plans they were executing were hidden beneath an esoteric veil unpierced even by the most ardent of it's enemies. And the Railroad was almost as much of an unknown as the Institute they fought against.
And now Piper had awoken to find herself captured and bound in the belly of the Commonwealth's monster-in-the-closet. Her face began to quiver and tears began as fear and dismay began to overwhelm her. Nora swung her legs to the left and twisted at the waist so she could reach out and grab Piper's hands. "Hey, hey, hey. Stay with me here. I know you're scared and I understand why, but we can't lose our heads. If we're going to get out of this, then we need to stay calm."
Piper's eyes latched onto Nora's face as she spoke, her expression that of someone who had fallen into the sea and was desperately scrabbling for something, anything to latch onto. "Try... try to think of this like you're researching another story. The Institute is a giant mystery right? Well now you have a chance that no one else has had before. Imagine all the secrets you can dig up here and what kind of a story it'll make when we get out. But if you fall apart then you'll miss out on the biggest scoop the Commonwealth has ever seen."
She sniffled once and tried, and partially succeeded, in wiping her cheeks on her shoulders as Nora's attempt to soothe her sank in. Piper still looked afraid and her fingers hadn't let go, but the tears had stopped flowing. "Okay Blue... the biggest scoop... I won't miss out on that." Nora gave an encouraging smile before she turned her head as she examined the room they were in once more. There was a distinct lack of anything they could possibly use in their compartment. The wall behind them was completely smooth and featureless. There wasn't so much as even a power outlet in sight. She turned her attention to the door off to their right. "You woke up before I did. Did you try the door or is it locked?" Piper shook her head despondently "I looked at it earlier while you were still asleep. I'm not even sure how it's supposed to open, there's no handle and I don't see any buttons or anything. I think we're stuck Blue."
Nora cursed under her breath before thumping her head against the wall behind her in frustration. "Looks like our only option is waiting. Sooner or later someone will have to check on us. Let's pretend we're still asleep until then. Maybe we'll get lucky and they'll open the door." Piper looked askance at Nora, her overwhelming skepticism and disdain of the idea plain to see. Nora hunched her shoulders underneath that glare "If you got a better idea, I'm all ears." Piper shook her head in bemusement but slumped to her side as she closed her eyes. Nora glanced towards door on the other side of the barrier to reassure herself that the room was still empty before following suit.
Without a clock in the room or her pipboy Nora could only guess at how much time had passed, but it felt like an hour at the very least. There was a soft hissing sound as the door leading to the outside opened and someone walked inside. She kept her eyes shut and hoped that their ruse would pay off as the quiet footsteps drew closer. There was a moment of silence before a man's voice shattered the faint hope she had in her plan. "I applaud you for the attempt, but you would have realized pretending to be asleep would be futile if you had noticed the camera there."
Nora winced inwardly at the man's words as she gave up the pretense and pushed herself upright with one elbow. As she opened her eyes, she could see him pointing at a small rectangular box on the wall directly across from her. 'Damn it he's right. I should have seen that.' She turned her attention back to the man as he grabbed a chair from the desk and positioned it next to the glass partition in front of them. He was an older man, fifty – perhaps sixty years old. He wore a white lab coat over a green sweater and a pair of tan pants. His skin was a pale white and for a split second those brown eyes painfully reminded her of the husband she had lost. The man's most striking feature however was his blue-gray beard and hair. "Who are you?"
He finished seating himself before deigning to respond. "An excellent question and not one with a simple answer. I am the director of the Institute and the people who live and work here call me Father. It's more of a nickname but it will suffice for now Nora." He glanced at Piper as she was sitting up. "And this must be Miss Wright or shall I call you Piper?" She scowled at him as he waited for an answer. "Very well. Miss Wright it is. And you've no doubt realized that I already know who you are so tell me, what is your next question?"
Nora hesitated as she considered how best to respond. The man's voice and courtesy were remarkably pleasant and even somewhat formal. It was the kind of demeanor and tone that she would expect at a dinner party amongst strangers, not a kidnapper speaking to those he had abducted from their home. "Where are we?" Father shook his head as he tsked, not unkindly, at her. "You've already figured that out. We're in the Institute, but allow to elaborate a bit more if that will satisfy you. You're located in one of the private labs used by the BioSciences division. BioSciences focuses on genetic and bio-engineering as well as medicine and pharmaceuticals."
"Why did you bring us here?"
Father leaned back in the chair as he considered her, an inscrutable look on his face. "All in due time, but I have a question of my own. There is a concept known as the Five W's. I would expect Miss Wright to be familiar with them in practice at the very least since she is a journalist Who. What. Where. When and Why. As it happens, the Five W's are also applicable to the scientific fields as well. We have more in common then you realize Miss Wright since scientists, like you, seek the truth wherever it may be found. And before I ramble any further, let me get to my question. You've asked me three of the Five W's so far Nora. And perhaps this is the vain hope of an old man, but are you a scientist? Or perhaps I should ask if that's what you were before the Great War."
She stared at him, mouth slightly open as her confusion continued to mount at the oddity of the situation. Bound hand and foot, locked in a room somewhere in the bowels of the Institute and the Institute's director himself was asking if she was a scientist? Eventually the neurons in her brain began to fire once more and she shook herself out of the abrupt stupor that had befallen her. "No... I'm not a scientist. I graduated college with a law degree but I was still studying to sit for the bar exam when the bombs fell." Nora's face hardened and she locked eyes with the man sitting in the chair as her temper surged up within her "But that's all in the past. Now I'm just a woman searching for her son. And I happen to know who took him."
Father returned Nora's glare with an even gaze, his expression remaining unperturbed by her sudden outburst. He steepled his hands and glanced at the ceiling for a moment before looking back down at her. "So, Kellogg told you that he worked for us before he died did he? He wasn't lying you know. The Institute has employed him for a very long time and he was quite a useful tool, albeit an unpleasant one. I can't say a part of me isn't glad that he's gone but that's neither here nor there. And yes, the Institute took your son. For what it's worth, it was the act of one of my predecessor's but I happen to agree with their decision."
"Why?" It was only a single word, but the sheer weight of all her emotions it contained was enough to make the mildly pleasant expression on Father's face crack, if only for a moment. "You've learned what synths are during your time on the surface. The Institute's goal was to create the most human-like robot that we could. And what's a better place to start than with the human body itself? Human DNA to be more precise. And therein is the crux of the matter. We needed DNA that was... undamaged. A pure DNA if you will. All of the people living on the surface, whether it was in the Commonwealth or the Capital Wasteland or anywhere else – they had been affected by all the leftover radiation from the Great War. After two centuries, there were too many mutations, too much damage and contamination for us to use as a template. Even those living in the Institute have been affected and were unusable. Eventually the Institute found what they were looking for in Vault one eleven. An infant – buried deep below the surface and frozen in time. Your son was everything we needed to create the perfect machine. And they succeeded Nora."
"You stole my son. You murdered my husband. All so you can make better looking robots? What the hell is wrong with you?" Nora felt blind rage seething through as she forced herself up onto her feet and moved towards the glass wall surrounding them. "I swear to whatever God is out there I'll kill you if I get the chance."
If the threat had any impact on Father, it didn't show on his face "Is that so? Well, I can't blame you for hating the Institute but I believe there's something that may yet make you reconsider. You've been searching through the Commonwealth for the son who was taken from you and now you've found him." He stood up from his chair and placed his hands behind his back as he looked her square in the eyes. "The people here call me Father as a sign of respect and affectation but the name I was given at birth is Shaun. I am your son."
Nora stared at him in shock at his proclamation before she began to laugh. Slowly at first, but it only took a few seconds before her laughter was loud and raucous. "How stupid do you think I am? You're old enough to be my father and you're claiming to be my son?"
"Is it so hard to imagine? You were frozen in the cryo pod and had no concept of the passage of time. You were first woken when Kellogg took me and killed Nate until you were later woken at my order and found that two hundred years had passed in the outside world. Is it so hard to imagine that sixty years passed between those two times?"
After everything she had seen in the Commonwealth since waking up, Nora had thought there was nothing that could have truly shocked her anymore. Until now. Her thoughts began racing at a thousand miles an hour as she sifted through everything she had learned up and see up until this point. Silence had settled over the room as she tried to process all of it. Ultimately though, it all came down to this moment. This man was claiming to be her son and the question was whether or not she believed him.
Nora's gaze returned to those brown eyes she had seen earlier. Father's eyes... Nate's eyes... Shaun's eyes. Yes, she believed him. Her voice was noticeably shaking as she forced out another question. "You're Shaun...my baby...but you've been calling me Nora...and you called your father Nate. Why are you using our names?"
For the first time since he had walked in, Shaun actually looked somewhat uncomfortable. "I can understand your feelings on this matter and I hope you can understand mine. You and Nate are my biological parents but I was taken as an infant and raised in the Institute. You may have given birth to me, but I have no memories of either of you. It may seem callous but from my perspective you're a stranger that I've never met until today."
He took a deep breath and the discomfort disappeared and that calm demeanor returned. "I think I've satisfied enough of my curiosity however. Let's move on to why I've had you brought here. The BioSciences division has been working on some projects with a great deal of potential but they've hit some major stumbling blocks. They have some ideas about how to proceed, but we've found ourselves in a somewhat familiar position. I was taken because the Institute needed uncontaminated DNA and while I remain a viable source, this project needs genetic material that I cannot provide. You, on the other hand, are exactly what they're looking for – an adult woman uncontaminated by the surface above. I will admit that... we brought you here in a most unusual way, but the research we are doing could create the breakthrough we've been working towards for so long and your cooperation would be greatly appreciated by the Institute."
Nora stared at him in disbelief as she felt grief mixing with her anger. Everything she had gone through, all the things she had suffered since leaving the Vault. The endless walking, the calluses and blisters on her feet, the sun burning her skin, hiding in ruins from radiation storms. The trail of bodies she had left behind her as she scoured the Commonwealth. Raiders, gunners, gangsters, ferals, synths, super mutants and all the animals twisted by radiation roaming the land. Her home along with her entire world had been taken by the bombs and then she had been forced to watch, powerless to stop it, as her husband was murdered and her son taken. And now that she had finally found him, he outright called her as a stranger. This was what her son had turned into? No. This wasn't Shaun. She had lost her son the same day that her husband had died. "You kidnapped us because you need guinea pigs? Go fuck yourself."
He nodded slowly, looking disappointed but not entirely surprised. He turned away and headed towards the door, pressing his hand against a part of the wall next to it. Both halves of the door slid into the walls as it opened. "X-Six Eighty-Eight, X-Four Eighteen, your services are required." Father disappeared through the door as two figures entered.
The first was the person she had seen the night before in her newly bought home. The second wasn't familiar, but he wore an identical black leather jacket and was holding a small cylinder of compressed gas. There was a valve at the top next to a long hose that terminated in a clear rounded plastic triangle of sorts. The door shut behind them as they approached the room Nora and Piper were in. X-Six pressed at the wall next to their small prison cell to open the doors.
Nora aimed her kick at X-Six's knee but he moved faster then she would have thought possible for a human as he dodged to one side then darted towards Piper. The other woman was in the middle of rising to her feet when he grabbed her shoulders and pinned her face down to the floor. Nora stomped her heel into his rib cage as hard as she could but X-Six didn't react in the slightest to her attack.
She felt a hand grip her shoulder from behind and spin her around to face the other man in the room. X-Four grabbed the back of her head to hold it fixed in position. His other hand twisted the valve on the tank he was holding before setting it down and pressing the plastic mask over her nose and mouth. Nora tried to pull away but the hand holding her was completely unyielding and didn't budge so much as a centimeter. She slammed a knee into his groin but X-Four didn't so much as blink as the gas took effect and everything went black.
