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Dakota Michelson:

A Fallout 4 Fan Fiction

Chapter 9: Free Your Mind

In the morning, Danse and I head out. I decide that it would be a good idea to check in with Piper at Diamond City. She seems to know more about the Institute than anyone else in the Commonwealth. Well, at least out of everyone I know in the Commonwealth. I walk into Publick Occurrences and see Piper talking to someone. Danse quickly puts his arm in front of me to stop me and pulls out his rifle. It only takes me one second to realize the person she is talking to is a synth.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Piper yells. "Put the gun down! Nick's not going to hurt anyone!" I'm confused, "What are you talking about, Piper? He's a synth." Piper walks towards us. "Look, kid. I didn't tell you everything about synths. Why don't you both put the guns down and we'll talk about this."

I look over at Danse and we both hesitantly lower our guns. "Nick's an abandoned prototype. He's escaped the Institute. He's on our side." "I'm not buying it," Danse says.

I know Danse is trained to be this way, but I'm still new to all of this and have an open mind. "How can we be sure?" I ask. Piper gives me the stink eye. "Well, I'm not dead yet. And I've known Nick for years. He's saved several of Diamond City's citizens."

"Okay, Piper. I trust you." I say. Danse gives me a stern look of disapproval. "Well, now that that's settled, what can I help you with today?" Piper asks. I relax my posture and tell her, "I'm looking for more information on the Institute. Specifically, how to find the Institute."

"Hoo boy," she says. "I've been investigating these creeps for over a year now." Nick walks forward, smoking a cigarette. He says, "No one knows where the Institute actually is. Or how to get in." I'm skeptical about what Nick is saying. "You mean, you don't know where they are either?" He shakes his head. "No. Security protocols wiped those memories out."

"Ugh. There's gotta be someone that knows where they are." I say. Danse looks over at me and says, "While we were on the Prydwen, Rhys and some knights searched for clues at Fort Hagen. We didn't find anything regarding their location." "W-Wait. What happened at Fort Hagen?" Piper asks. "A squad of Institute synths were using it as a base," Danse says. "There was someone that was leading them. To what, I'm not sure."

"Right. The man with the scar across his eye." I say. Nick looks surprised. "Wait. It couldn't be. Could it be Kellogg?" Danse says, "The terminal belonged to a man named Kellogg. It's probably safe to assume it's the same person." "Well, he must have known how to get in the Institute, right?" Piper says excitedly.

"Well, there's one small problem, Piper," I say. "Kellogg's dead. Brains blown out." Nick looks over at Piper. "Huh. Gets his brains blown out. You know, we may not need him alive at all." We all look at him, confused. Piper says, "You're talking crazy here Nick. Got a fault in the ole' subroutines?"

"Look," he says, "there's a place in Goodneighbor called the Memory Den. Relive the past moments in your mind as clear as the day they happened. If anyone could get a dead brain to sing, it'll be Doctor Amari, the mind behind the memories. But we're going to need a piece of Kellogg's brain. Enough gray matter to bring to Amari and find out if this is going to work."

"Ew gross." I say. It just slipped out. Danse looks over, "Well, Rhys did find something. This was attached to Kellogg's brain." He holds up a clear bag that contains some metallic thing with a decent chunk of brain." "Ew, Danse. You just carry that thing with you?" He chuckles. "It seemed appropriate to bring it since we are investigating the Institute."

Nick, who doesn't seem fazed by this at all, says, "Cybernetics, huh? We may have just won the lottery. If you're ready, we can head out to Amari today. Just need to make a stop by my office first." Eager, I say, "Sure. The sooner, the better."

Danse, Nick, and I head out to his office. While Nick gathers his belongings, Danse and I wait outside. "Really, Dakota? What are you thinking?" Danse says angrily. "What am I supposed to do?" I say, defensively. "Cause a riot in Diamond City? Lose our only lead on finding out where the Institute is? Think about it Danse." Danse is about to respond as Nick opens the door. "You two ready?" Nick says. I nod at Nick and look over at Danse. He doesn't say anything, but stands back up from leaning against the wall and we all start the trip to Goodneighbor.

As we venture deeper into the city, we find several Super Mutant settlements. We are able to take out the ones with only a few of the beasts, but we avoid the larger settlements, as we would be extremely outnumbered.

As we walk into Goodneighbor, I begin to feel very uneasy. Everyone is staring at us and this place has all the makings of danger.

We walk into the Memory Den to meet a woman in a lounge chair. "Well well," she says as she smiles at Nick. "Amari's downstairs." Danse and I continue to follow Nick's lead as we head into the basement.

"Doctor Amari?" Nick says. Amari turns around. "Mr. Valentine. It's been quite a while since you've been in these parts." "Yes, well, we need a deep dig, Amari. It's not gonna be easy. The perp, Kellogg, is already cold on the floor."

"Are you mad!?" Her eyes widen. "Putting aside the fact that you're asking me to defile a corpse, you do realize that the memory simulators require intact, living brains to function?" "Well, technically the corpse was defiled already," I blurt out.

"This dead brain had inside knowledge of the Institute," Nick says to Amari. "The biggest scientific secret of the Commonwealth. You need this as much as we do."

She sighs. "Fine. I'll take a look, but no guarantees." Danse hands over the clear bag. "What's this?" Amari shouts out. "This isn't a brain. Wait… That's the hippocampus! And this thing attached to it. A neural interface? From what I've seen, all Institute technology has a similar architecture."

She continues, "Mr. Valentine is an older generation synth. But, Institute technology being what it is… The brain implant could fit him. But that's an incredible risk to take. We're talking about wiring something to his brain." Nick says, "Don't worry about me, Amari. I'm well past the warranty date, anyway." Surprised, I look over at Nick and ask, "Are you sure about this?" "No idea," he says, "but the information on this brain is worth the risk."

Amari tries to attach the implant to Nick. "I need you to keep talking to me, Mr. Valentine," she says. "Any slight change in your cognitive functions could be dire." "There's a lot of flashes. Static. I can't make any sense of it, doc," he responds. Amari looks over at me. "It seems the mnemonic impressions are encoded. The Institute has one last failsafe. There's a lock on the memories in the implant."

"Is there a way to unlock it?" I ask. "Let me think," she says. "The encryption is too strong for a single mind. But what if we used two? We load both you and Mr. Valentine into the memory loungers and run your cognitive functions in parallel. He'll act as a host while your consciousness drives through whatever memories we can find." I take a deep breath. "Alright then. Let's… get started," I say.

"Dakota?" Danse says. I look over at him. "Good luck, soldier." I give him an uneasy smile. I'm no good at lying and I can't hide the fact that I have no idea what I'm doing or if I'm okay with it. But there's no other choice. This is the only way to find out about the Institute.

I sit in the lounger and within a few short seconds, it feels like I am losing consciousness. Like sleeping…

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I open my eyes and I'm sitting on a bed. A woman is next to me. "Can you hear me?" Amari's voice echoes through my "dream". "Ah, good. The simulation appears to be working, although the memories are quite fragmentary. I'll try to find the intact memories that hopefully gives us a clue to the Institute's location." After a short while, everything comes to me. The woman is my mother. Or wait, no. It's Kellogg's mother. "Remember, you are experiencing these memories as Kellogg. This may prove disorienting at first," Amari says.

The radio is playing and mom… I mean Kellogg's mother says, "Listen to me, Connie. You take this." She hands me a gun. "You're old enough. You're the man of the family now. It's your job to protect us."

"This doesn't seem to be what we're looking for…" Amari's voice echoes. All of a sudden, several images and scattered thoughts zoom by. I recognize bits and pieces of it, but the rest just flash by. "Wait!" I say. The memories stop zooming by and I'm standing in front of a woman. I'm surrounded by several synths. "So, you're with the Institute." I… Kellogg says. "What do you want?"

The Institute agent says, "It's come to my attention that you've been disruptive of our operations lately. This must stop." I say, "I do what people pay me to do. If that's a problem for you, I can see only one way out." She says, "I don't think you fully understand the situation you're in." "I think I do." "Very well. B7-48, initiate," she commands. I grab the synth and from behind and use it like a shield. I fire at one of the synths across the room. It falls to the ground. Same with the next one. Then I kick the synth I was using to the ground and shoot it in the head.

"Impressive. We may have something to talk about after all," the woman says.

"We're getting closer. I've found another memory for you to try out." Amari says.

I'm in a vault. THE vault. I walk in and there are two scientists with me. "Vault computers are still working. That's good," one of the scientists say. "Checking through the logs. Hopefully it's all…" Impatiently, I say, "Just… find it." He responds, "Pod C6. Down the hall near the end." I walk up to the pod. The other scientist points at it and says, "This is the one. Here." I command, "Open it." The door opens and I recognize it as the missing woman with the baby. She is shivering and coughing. "Is it over? Are we okay?" "Almost." I say. "Everything's going to be fine." The scientist tries grabbing the baby. "Come here. It's okay." The woman refuses to let go though. "I've got him," she yells. I point my gun at her. "Let the boy go. I'm only gonna tell you once." She continues to struggle. "I'm not giving you Shaun!" I fire, and it's done. "Goddammit!" I yell. "Get the kid out of here and let's go." I look into another pod. "At least we still have the backup…"

Amari zooms to the next memory. "O…kay… Let's try this one."

I'm sitting in a chair. The boy, Shaun. I remember thinking, "Wasn't my idea to settle down with the kid in the middle of Diamond City. I thought it was a terrible idea, actually. But it was one of the old man's pet projects, so here we are. The first kid synth. We're like a happy little family."

The front door opens. A courser. "Kellogg," he says. "So what's the big crisis this time?" I ask. "New orders for you. One of our scientists has gone rogue. Name's Doctor Brian Virgil. We know he's hiding somewhere in the Glowing Sea. Here's his file." I look over the file. Virgil was the head of Bioscience. "Wow, some heads are gonna to roll for this. Capture and return? Or just elimination?" "Elimination," the courser says. "He was working on a highly classified program."

"Damn… So I guess you're taking the kid back with you." The synth responds, "Affirmative. Your only mission is to locate and eliminate Virgil." The kid says, "You're taking me home to my father?" "Yes. Stand next to me and hold still." The two walk over to the middle of the room. "X6-88, ready to relay with Shaun." Just like that, two blinding flashes, like lightning bolts, and they're gone.