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Dakota Michelson

A Fallout 4 Fan Fiction

Chapter 7: Synthetic Anomalies

As Danse and I walk towards the exit of Diamond City, a little girl shouts, "Get your copy of the Publick! We expose the truth behind the Institute!" Just thinking about synths gives me a weird feeling. Once we leave through the gate of the city, I say, "Hey, Danse? What do you know about synths?" Danse sharply turns his head at me and there's a disgusted look on his face. "Synths are abominations created by the Institute. Their purpose is to 'improve' the human race," Danse says. I ask, "I've heard the Institute kidnaps people in the Commonwealth. Why would they want to do that?" "My guess is to replace people in the Commonwealth. It's how the Institute gets their intel. God only knows what they do with the originals."

We make it to the police station and walk inside. Haylen runs over to us with a look of panic on her face. "Paladin Danse! You're back. Are you alright?" she asks. "Yes. We had to retreat to Diamond City to avoid the radiation storm. But we're alright," Danse says as he takes his helmet off.

"While you've been out, I've been picking up anomalous energy readings. The occurrences are scattered, but I've noticed recently that a large amount of the instances are in the Fort Hagen area," she explains. "Any idea what these readings are?" I ask. "No idea. But whatever is causing these is using an extremely high amount of energy," says Haylen. Danse looks over at me and says, "We'll look into it."

We take a short break and Haylen hands me some ammo and a uniform. "It's a Field Scribe uniform. It's nothing compared to power armor, but it's better than walking in the Commonwealth with a Vault suit." I smile and say, "Thanks, Haylen."

We head back out and I follow Danse around a lake until we get to Fort Hagen. The front entrance is blocked, so we walk around the building and find an underground parking garage with an entrance into the building. As we walk in, I see a lot of debris and some skeletons lying on the ground. It's dark, but I see light coming from upstairs. We walk up the stairs and I begin to hear footsteps, but they sound metallic. We continue to walk up until we reach a hallway. "Wait," Danse says as we walks in front of me. He pokes his head around the corner and turns back to me and says, "Someone's in here." On the other end of the hallway, I see something walk towards us. It's a humanoid robot and I immediately recognize that this thing is a synth.

The synth says, "Movement detected" and several other synths run towards us and start firing. I aim right at the first synth's head and fire, but it doesn't seem to faze it. I fire a few more times and it falls. I can tell killing synths won't be as easy as other enemies I've encountered. Danse stands in front of me to shield me. The lasers that the synths are shooting out don't seem to do much to Danse's power armor. I peak out from behind him and fire at another synth, but the synth didn't even move. It's almost as if it cannot feel pain. Danse fires at the same synth and it says, "Limb actuator damaged."

I fire at it again and it falls. Another synth comes out and Danse immediately shoots it in the head twice and it falls. The fallen synth's last words, "Asset Kellogg in danger." "Kellogg?" I say out loud. Then one of the synths shoots and hits my arm. Thanks to the uniform Haylen gave me, it feels only like a small burn. I hide back behind Danse who is impervious to the synths weapons as I reload my gun. Before I finish, Danse fires and the room is filled with silence.

I exhale and Danse turns around and asks, "Are you alright?" I nod and say, "Let's keep moving." We navigate the floor until we reach an elevator. As the elevator descends, I find myself practically squished against the wall since Danse and his power armor take almost the whole elevator.

When the elevator stops, we reach a dark tunnel with a chained door on the left. I unchain it and recognize the hallway as where we came in from. We continue down the hallway and see a synth and a turret ahead. "Get behind me," Danse says and I obey. He walks forward and shoots the turret first. The synth walks forward as well, but the turret explodes and takes the synth down with it.

All of a sudden, a voice echoes through the hallway. "I don't know who you are, but I'll give you one—and only one chance to leave." Danse retorts, "Negative. We're going to send you and your synths to Hell!" The voice chuckles and room goes silent again. We continue forward and then several laser turrets drop down from the roof, surrounding us. They start firing and I hide behind a table lying on the ground. When the one firing at me stops, I look over the table and fire three shots at it. I duck back down when it starts firing again. Danse is standing behind me to cover my back. I fire at the turret again and it explodes. The other turrets that Danse was shooting at were destroyed by the time I looked behind me.

We continue down long winding hallway knocking out the few turrets that are left. Surprisingly, we haven't seen any more synths. We make it into what looks like a bedroom. Probably the voice on the intercom's. Just look around it, I see a few containers, a table, and a few other objects I don't recognize. It all looks like something pre-war. It's all so clean, like it's never been tarnished by the radiation.

"Michelson?" Danse says. I look over at him and see he is heading through another door at the end of the room. We walk into a dark room and then all of the lights turn on. Synths are all over the room and they are aiming their guns right at us.

A man comes out into the middle of the room. He has a big scar on his left eye. "I warned you, but here you are anyway. You're way in over your head in ways you can't even imagine." I look around and see synths walking behind us. We are completely surrounded. "This is the end of the line for you." The synths start firing at us and I shoot back. Danse starts running into the synths that block the entrance and knocks them over. Then he stomps on its head. "Well, that's one way to do it," I think to myself.

I shoot another synth down and I feel that same burning sensation on my back. I let out a painful sigh and turn around quickly to see a synth right by me. I trip it and step on its arms. Then I shoot it in the head a few times. I look around the room and I cannot see the man with the scar. "Is he hiding?" I say to myself. Then I hear a shot and pain spreads all the way up my leg. I fall to the ground. "Not quite," the man says. I turn around and I still don't see him. Danse runs towards the area in front of me and tackles something. In that moment I see a shape of a man. It's transparent and distorts the surrounding. Danse has him pinned down and punches him. Then the illusion disappears and I clearly see him. Danse puts his laser rifle up to the man's head and shoots several times. I close my eyes and look away.

And just like that, the room is quiet again. The constant pain in my leg is worsening by the second. I look and see the bullet whole and blood all over. Danse says, "Are you okay?" and looks over at me. He looks panicked as he realizes I've been shot. He gets up and runs over to me. "Dakota!" I'm bleeding a lot and I'm starting to feel light-headed. He is doing something to my leg, but I can't tell. I feel too weak to move. However, I do feel him lift me up. Parts of his power armor arms are bumpy and jab into my back, but it feels strangely comfortable. I close my eyes as I feel myself doze off.