*Apologies in advance for the in-game dialogue =P.*
Seconds later, Rose appeared in a circular room filled with odd panels and blinking lights. She dropped to her knees and drew in a shuddering breath as her body coped with the shock of being rapidly de-molecularized and reformed. They had done it. She had survived. And now, she was in the Institute itself.
She took a few minutes to gather herself, and then slowly pushed herself to her feet. There were no alarms sounding, and no guards running in to gun her down. Odd. Even so, she gripped her shotgun tightly, relieved to see that it had traveled with her through the teleporter. Her pack had made it as well; she was comforted by the weight of the ammo and stimpaks that rested on her shoulder.
She stepped out of the circular room and into some kind of control room. She was immediately struck by how clean everything was… after spending some much time in the Commonwealth, it was unnatural looking. Every surface gleamed white and silver, with not so much as a speck of dust to be seen. Once her brain processed the radical differences, she began snooping through the drawers and cupboards, pocketing a few stimpaks and a couple aerosols of Addictol. Old-ish habits died hard, it seemed.
"Hello."
She nearly jumped out of her skin, whirling around with her shotgun ready to fire at the nearest threat. But the room was still empty; the voice was coming over a loudspeaker.
"I wondered if you might make it here," the voice continued. "You're quite resourceful. I am known as Father; the Institute is under my guidance."
"You've got to be kidding me," Rose muttered under her breath. Father? It made me him sound like some sort of cult leader… or a god.
"I know why you're here," Father continued, as she walked cautiously down a pathway that led to some sort of glass elevator. "I'd like to discuss things with you, face-to-face. Please, step into the elevator."
On command, the glass doors slid open noiselessly to invite her inside. Rose hesitated, wary. But all the other doors were locked; she didn't have too many other options. With a white-knuckle grip on her weapons, she stepped into the small pod, jerking slightly when it began to descend.
"I can only imagine what you've heard, what you think of us," Father said. It seemed he could isolate speakers to follow her as she journeyed further into the Institute. Swell. "I'd like to show you that you may have… the wrong impression."
At that, the elevator dropped into a huge chamber, several stories deep with countless rooms. Rose felt her jaw drop open; the place was insane. They even had trees, green trees, and grass, running water. All around were people dressed in white labcoats, going about their business and barely paying any mind to the dirty, armored stranger coming down into their midst. If she hadn't known better, she would have sworn that she was standing in the middle of a pre-war courtyard for a research lab or university, not underground in a secret post-apocalyptic facility. It bothered her that no one seemed to be overly interested in her as the glass elevator slowly descended. It was almost as though her presence was… expected.
"Welcome to the Institute," Father continued, notes of pride in his voice. "This is its reality. This place, these people, the work we do. For over a hundred years, we've dedicated ourselves to humanity's survival. Decades of research, countless experiments and trials… a shared vision of how science can help shape the future. It has never been easy, and our actions have often been misinterpreted by those who live aboveground. Someday, perhaps, we can show them what we have accomplished. But for now, we must remain underground."
The elevator had reached the bottom floor. The doors slid open instantly, and Rose stumbled into the hallway, feeling off-balance. Her mind was reeling, struggling to make sense of what she had seen. Whatever she had pictured the Institute to be, this hadn't been it.
Father continued on, either ignoring or not noticing her mental overload. "There's too much at stake here. Things above are… not stable, as you've seen. I'd like to talk to you about what we can do, for everyone. But that can wait. You are here for a very specific, very personal reason. You are here for your son."
Rose found another elevator at the end of the hallway, and with a resigned huff stepped into it and allowed it to take her where it would. After a few moments the doors opened, and she felt her heart stop when she saw what was on the other side. Shaun!
She ran up to him, cursing when she realized that he was locked in a room with glass walls. Her first thought was whether or not that glass would be bulletproof, but she didn't want to frighten him by firing a gun at the room if she could help it. He didn't even seem to notice her at first; he sat on the floor, contentedly playing with some toys
Rose put her palm against the glass. "S… Shaun?"
"Huh?" The boy turned around, green eyes widening in surprise. "Who are you?"
Rose stared at him, drinking in every detail. He was around ten now, like she had seen in Kellogg's memories. Nate's dark hair and solid structure was evident in his appearance, but she could see herself too, in his eyes and the shape of his mouth, the paleness of his skin.
"Shaun, I'm… I'm your mom," she said, almost having forgotten to speak. "I'm your mother."
The boy frowned. "What are you talking about? Where's Father?"
She blinked back tears, struggling to keep control. "It's okay that you don't remember. You were a baby when they took you from me. It's been a long time. But I found you! Are you okay? They didn't hurt you, did they?"
Shaun was beginning to get distressed. He backed up from the glass, face twisting in some negative emotion. "Who are you? I don't know you! Father! Father!"
"Shaun, please!" Rose pleaded, sinking to her knees in front of the glass. "I'm your mother! You have no idea what I've been through to find you. Please, just listen to me!"
"Father! Help me! There's someone here; help me!"
"Shaun… S9-23, recall code Cirrus."
Abruptly, Shaun appeared to pass out, going limp on his feet. Rose looked up and saw an elderly man standing to her right; she had never noticed him come in.
Immediately, she rounded on him. "What did you do to my son?!"
The man nodded, unperturbed. "Fascinating, but disappointing. The child's responses were not at all what I anticipated. He's a prototype, you understand. We're only just now beginning to explore the effects of extreme emotional stimuli." He spread his hands in a peaceful gesture. "Please, try to keep an open mind. I recognize that you are emotional, and that your journey here has been been fraught with challenges. Let's start anew. I am Father, leader of the Institute."
"What did you do to my son?" Rose demanded, biting off each word in a dangerous growl. "Give me Shaun! The real Shaun! Right now!"
"I know, I know," Father said, his tone maddeningly calm, like that of a shrink dealing with an unruly patient. "You've gone through such lengths to find him."
Rose pumped her shotgun in warning. "I could kill you, right now. If you don't give me my son, I will! You've been watching me. You know I'm not bluffing."
Father nodded. "I do know, and there would be nothing I could do to stop you. I need you to realize that this situation is a lot more complicated than you could have imagined."
Rose laughed; it sounded bitter and half-crazed, even to her own ears. "More complicated? I get frozen for 210 years, wake up in a monster-filled wasteland with my entire family dead or kidnapped, and I just hijacked some classical music radio station to teleport here only to find a freaking prototype of my son! It doesn't get more complicated than that!"
"I'm afraid it does." Father sighed. "You have traveled very far, and suffered a great deal, to find your son. Your tenacity and dedication have been awarded. It's good to finally meet you, after all this time. You see, I am Shaun. I am your son."
Rose rocked back as though he had slapped her. She stared disbelievingly at the man in front of her, easily thirty years her senior, if not more.
"That's impossible!" she said, shaking her head. "No. My son is still just a child. Why are you doing this to me?"
Father's expression was sympathetic. "I promise you that this is not a trick. I know this is a lot to take in. In the vault, you had no concept of the passage of time. You were released, and went looking for the baby boy you had lost. But then you learn that your son is not an infant, but a ten-year-old boy, and you believed that ten years had passed. Is it really so hard to accept that it was not ten, but sixty years? That is the reality."
Rose felt like she had been punched in the gut. Sixty years? The room started to swim before her eyes, and she held a hand to her head to try and steady herself.
"Here I am, raised by the Institute, and now its leader," Father- now Shaun- said, and she couldn't help but detect that note of pride she had heard earlier.
"I don't… I can't…" Vertigo flooded her head as she began to go into shock, overloaded by the emotional trauma. Unable to hold on any longer, she blacked out.
A small, persistent beeping wormed its way through her subconscious, and eventually Rose was able to latch onto it to pull herself awake. She blinked open her eyes and noticed she was in another white room, lying on a cot with a blanket covering her. The beeping was coming from the machine next to her, tracking her heart rate and oxygen levels. She felt a pinch when she moved her arm and noticed that she was hooked to an IV. She moved to pull it out, not trusting whatever substance was in it.
"I wouldn't do that, if I were you."
She jumped, not having noticed Father- Shaun- sitting near the foot of the bed. He was watching her with the expression of the scientifically curious, cataloguing her reactions.
"You passed out," he explained calmly. "Understandable, given the level of physical and emotional stress you had just put yourself through. I had you brought up here to my chambers… I thought that might be a more relaxed environment for you to wake up in, rather than on a cot in our medical wing."
Rose wasn't ready to talk yet, so he continued. "I took the liberty of having our doctors give you a brief physical examination while you were unconscious… just to check for any injuries or communicable illnesses. For having spent so much time above ground, you are in remarkably good health… though your scars are a testament to the battles you've been through. Not many people, let alone young women, could have survived what you have."
Rose frowned, feeling violated instead of comforted by the observation. "That couldn't have waited until I woke up?"
"We needed to insure that you were not carrying any illnesses that could infect our population here," Shaun said matter-of-factly. "Having been as isolated as we have been for so long, a simple influenza virus could quickly become devastating. It was best to examine you as quickly as possible."
"Your people do not touch me without my permission. Ever."
"From this point onward, they will not."
Rose shifted and swung her feet over the side of the bed, but didn't stand up. She wasn't sure if being unconscious had given her brain time to process everything, or if she was just feeling calmer as the result of some drug that they had given her. Either way, she found herself more willing to listen to the answers Shaun had to give her.
"They kidnapped you, Shaun," she said quietly. "They stole you from me. It was wrong."
Shaun lifted his shoulders. "Right and wrong are irrelevant. They did what they needed to in order to ensure humanity's survival."
"They killed your father!"
Shaun had the grace to look somewhat ashamed. "Yes, I read the reports. It seems that was an unfortunate bit of collateral damage."
Rose's face twisted. "Collateral damage? Are you kidding me? Nate was your father, my husband! Your man gunned him down in cold blood!"
At that, Shaun was unapologetic. "Yes. At the time I was… taken, the year 2227, the Institute was just beginning to make strides in synth production. But it was never enough. Scientific curiosity and the goal of perfection drove them onward. They wanted to make the perfect machine. So they followed the best example they had: the human being."
Rose's brow creased in confusion. "What are you getting at?"
"Human beings are capable of anything, and the Institute wanted machines that could match that level of potential. They started designs for the third generation of synths, the ones you see today. But even though they had already spent generations underground, there was still radiation damage in their DNA. They needed an untainted specimen to make the designs work. Our family- frozen, untouched by time or the atomic bombs- was the ideal solution."
"So why didn't they just de-freeze all of us? Wake us up as a family and bring us in together? Or why didn't any of the other people who made it into the vault work?"
"There was some concern about the efficacy of the designs," Shaun explained. "It was prudent to leave you and my father in cryo as backups in case something went wrong. The Institute chose us because you were the only couple to bring a child with you… someone who hadn't yet had the chance to damage themselves through their life choices. Ultimately my DNA was successful… every synth you see today has been made with the help of my genetic code. That's why they all refer to me as Father."
"And here I was worrying that there would be a creepy reason why they called you that," Rose replied sarcastically.
"A sense of humor is good… it shows you're coping," Shaun said, and Rose resisted rolling her eyes. "But then, you've always been adaptable. You would not have made it here if you were otherwise." Shaun stood. "I know we have more to discuss, but the Institute is on the verge of some important breakthroughs. Your presence would be… appreciated, as we approach them.
"I've been a part of something amazing here," he continued, eyes lighting up. "I've helped build a life for myself, and the people of the Institute. And now, after all these years, you have an opportunity to help with that. Doesn't that intrigue you?"
A big part of Rose wanted to tell him he was crazy, but she held her tongue. Desdemona's warning to tell them what they wanted to hear rang in her head. She may have found her son- as twisted and dissatisfying a reality it was- but there was still the problem of the enslaved synths that needed rescuing.
So, after a moment, Rose said, "Yes, I think so. You want me to stay here, in the Institute?"
"Yes, that is what I propose," Shaun affirmed. "The Institute can provide a better life than anything above ground. And to be clear; you would not be a prisoner here. You are welcome to come and go as you please. Though I encourage you to take your time to get to know your home here; walk around, meet the Division heads. They can fill you in on all our projects."
He made to leave, and then paused and turned back as though forgetting something. "Preparations are being made for a room of your own, but in the meantime you are welcome to rest here. Clean clothes and any hygienic products you may need have been placed in the washroom for you; I imagine it's been quite a while since you've had the luxury of a real shower." He gave her a small smile, and left.
She waited until the door closed, and then resolutely yanked the IV out of her arm. It appeared that they had just hooked her up to some fluids, but she had no way of knowing what else they had mixed in there.
Unable to resist the temptation, she walked into the bathroom and looked around. It was simple, minimalist, just like the rest of the Institute. A white jumpsuit, similar to what she had seen on the other scientists on her way down, rested on the sink. A fluffy white towel hung from a rack on the wall, and the shower was stoked with honest-to-God shampoo, conditioner, and soap.
"I guess a shower couldn't hurt…" she murmured. It was easy to operate: only one button, and immediately warm water began pouring out of the showerhead. After doing a quick check for any cameras or other monitoring devices, she stripped down and stepped in.
A groan escaped her when she felt the water cascade over her body. She couldn't even remember the last time she had a real shower. Most of the time keeping clean meant sponge baths with old rags and whatever water source was handy; any place that managed to rig running water in the Commonwealth still lacked heating, and the pressure was always shit.
Eagerly, she poured some of the shampoo into her hand and lathered it into her hair, marveling as she saw the dirt wash out down the drain. She repeated the procedure with the conditioner, and scrubbed her body with the soap until her skin was pink.
A few minutes later, she stood wrapped in a towel and examining her reflection in the mirror. She would have lingered longer, but the shower had some sort of timer on it to prevent over-use of water.
She ran a hand through her hair, freshly combed and free of tangles. It had grown much longer since the last time she had gotten a good look at herself; when she had exited the cryo tank, her hair had fallen around her shoulders. Now, it hung nearly to her chest. Some of the previous shine and vibrancy had been lost, probably due to poor nutrition, and the auburn color had lightened somewhat from long hours in the sun. Her face, too, had changed. New lines had appeared around her eyes, and all of the angles seemed sharper. She touched the scar across her right eyebrow- given to her by a feral- and another just under the curve of her jaw. She didn't bother checking the scars on the rest of her body.
She wasn't able to find a pair of scissors – or any sharp object for that matter- so giving herself a haircut was out. Instead, she pulled her locks back in a French braid. She wasn't big on the idea of wearing the Institute jumpsuit, but the thought of donning her road-worn clothes again after getting so clean made her skin crawl. Besides, it would probably be a good idea to be seen assimilating into their society.
Clean and rested, she decided it was time to go out and explore the rest of the Institute. She still had to find a terminal to upload Tinker Tom's secret message, and she thought that Shaun might be right… it would be a good idea to see just what exactly the Institute scientists were up to.
