Teaching a Robot to Love

-Notes-

This was such a delicate chapter for me because I am completely bullshitting at this point. I realize that many of you might have your own ideas about what X6's past might look like and they're all probably equally as amazing. I did my best to connect everything while glossing over some plot holes (aka Synth/Real Shaun with Kellogg). While we never get to see his true past, we get hints of the process he had to go through to become a courser. Review of FO4: X6 was the courser that took Shaun from Kellogg at DC. I also reference FO3 for any of you Fallout diehards!

P.S. If you understand this chapter reference, just know that I love you.

Chapter 7: Electric Sheep

The mechanical hum of the bunks filled the room, drowning out the thoughts of Alan Binet who sat in the corner of the room on a stool. The room was lit up an eerie blue from the piping from the charging bunks the coursers slept on. He needed to take a routine inventory of their sleeping behaviors for any irregularities. The conversation he had with X6-88 was still bothering him. In the history of the Institute, courser training had proven obsolete. All except for one…

The door to the bunker swished open as Father stepped through, taking the side of Binet. He leaned down and spoke in a hushed voice so as not to bother the coursers.

"You mentioned you needed to see me. How are they doing?"

Binet's wiry hair was sticking in every direction as he turned his attention to X6. The monotonous whir of air conditioning and machinery buzz dulled his thoughts.

"Yes. Your prodigal courser, designation: X6-88" he droned, motioning his hand to the bunks. He stood up and guided Father to the side of the bed. "Notice how his eyes move. He is dreaming. Not only is this an extremely rare phenomenon among synths, the only other courser in history to have been able to engage in REM sleep was… designation A3-21."

Father folded his arms and closed his eyes, a dark shadow passing over his wise brow. "Codename Alpha" he muttered softly.

Binet shifted his weight nervously, "Yes indeed. X6-88 came to me late yesterday informing me of 'programming errors' as he put it. He is noticing irregularities in his bodily functions that are akin to the human emotions that were supposed to be eradicated during training, although I doubt he has yet to realize it. What should we do? This is the courser assigned to your mother after all."

Father stared down at X6 with a pained expression. "Keep monitoring him. I want to be notified of any irregularities in his behavior from now on."

"Yes Father."

A faint photograph. A distant memory faded into view and enveloped the scene in a white blur. When it came into focus, X6-88 was there, sweeping the pristine carbon halls of the Institute. He was dressed in the same white jumpsuit as the rest of the gen-3 synths. When the latest model of synth came out, Robotics was issued an order to create a batch in bulk: the X-model series. This model was supposed to be the first batch of perfected synths, no glitches, no malfunctions, just pure software. The first gen-3s; modeled from the genes of a child. He vaguely remembered smiling to one of the other synths as he worked.

The scene morphed. Not long after the X-model series synths stepped out of the creation pool, they were sent to programming which would detail them on their jobs. X6 sat, in perfectly arranged chairs in perfectly arranged rows. Allie Filmore pounded furiously on the projector that didn't seem to want to turn on, her face turning red with irritation. Perhaps it was lucky that he happened to be the synth sitting right behind the projector and perhaps it was lucky that a paperclip caught his eye. Bowing respectfully, X6 opened the lid of the projector, and using that paperclip, bypassed the power couplings that had short-circuited and connected the current to another wire. Wordlessly, he sat back down. That was his first mark.

The memory faded away to black as another one took its place. Being assigned to sanitation duty meant a lot of late night shifts after all of the humans had gone to sleep. He was only assigned to hall duty that night, not anything else. Yet, something pulled him into the inviting blue back-lit doors of Advanced Systems. Almost like a calling. Lights flickering on at the first signs of motion, a laser rifle caught his eye. Only the coursers were allowed to carry these. They must have had an accuracy drill earlier. If X6 had been more obedient maybe he wouldn't have picked up that rifle and aimed it at the freshly replaced targets. No one was there anyway; no one would see him land precise hits on those targets seeing as they would be replaced by tomorrow morning. No one except the security camera. That was his second mark.

The scenery shifted to a few years later. The first of the X-model synths had rebelled, stolen a pistol, and shot the head of the Institute. There was chaos. Coursers were quick to send everybody back to their rooms or stations assuring them that the danger had passed. The head of the Institute was dead, what did this mean? Demanding answers earned him a punch to the face and led him no closer to the truth. By this time X6 had become very skilled at avoiding detection. He knew every hall and corner of the Institute and patiently waited for the coursers to turn their backs before slinking to the terminal next to a storage closet. In the past few years, there had been a hacking issue among the terminals. Coursers were confounded, looking for the menace. X6 was that menace. Computers just spoke to him. They had written commands that told a computer how to run and could be manipulated with only a few keystrokes. Before it was only to sate his curiosity about courser dispatch to the surface, or gun specifications in the armory, or new plans to improve synth designs. Now he was about to hack into the most important terminal yet: the head of the Institute's. How was X6 to know that the head's terminal coding was encrypted and had a failsafe to log the designation number of anyone that tried to hack into it? That was his third mark.

The next week X6-88 was sought out to become a courser. He was told that his tenacity, fearlessness, and independence all qualified him for courser training. Dr. Zimmer, previous head of the SRB, assumed the position as the temporary leader of the Institute. Training regimen intensified under his supervision. X6 honestly doesn't really remember much of the beginning. All he remembers is the intense pain he felt as they shattered his bones, seared his flesh, and broke his mind. In order to be rebuilt as a courser, you must first be torn down.

Then, the isolation.

As a courser in training, you were not to have any relations with other synths or humans. There was only you, the coursers, and Dr. Zimmer. It was in this period of isolation that they were taught psychology for the purposes of intimidation, combat for assault, investigative techniques for hunting, and mechanical skills in order to notice signs within the environment. They were drilled on their capacity for precision in both armed and unarmed combat. Dr. Zimmer swore to make a more obedient wave of coursers and so he added a month onto the isolation period where each trainee would spend numerous hours in front of a screen, watching videos and propaganda of the Institute and how it was the future of the Commonwealth. Their eyes were forced open while they watched. There was so much pain.

During one of their training sessions, Dr. Zimmer had been in a foul mood. X6 was just sitting quietly, awaiting instruction, when he struck him across the face. His eyes were too disrespectful, he said. They stared at him with such a defiance he had never seen, he claimed. X6 still wasn't sure why he was singled out, but he from then on, he became the target of extra harassment every training session. Disgusted and disturbed by his apparent gaze, Dr. Zimmer ordered X6 to wear glasses and never take them off. He never wanted to gaze upon his eyes again. So from then on, sunglasses became a distinct part of X6's identity.

The final test was a hellish practice. While a handful of gen-3's were chosen, only 5 could come out on top. They pit them against each other in pairs in battles to the death in order to replicate life expectancy up on the surface. The winners of the first test were then given a written exam, of which they had to achieve a perfect score or their minds were wiped of the entire training regimen and reassigned back to their gen-3 duties. There were an unfortunate number of 6 synths left after the exam which Dr. Zimmer begrudgingly accepted. And just like that, designation X6-88 became one of the elite coursers of the Institute.

Years went by. X6 got to see firsthand the ugly nature of the Commonwealth, and how futile its existence was in comparison to the Institute. Surface dwellers were scrapping to get by on their pitiful existence completely unaware of the successes of the Institute. There had been talks of a new brand of gen-3 synths, ones that could age, but that idea had been abandoned long ago. They were to be called the beta-series synths.

He remembered hearing stories of how Dr. Zimmer had hired a mercenary named Kellogg to go hunt down a pre-war child for its genes in order to create synths. X6 also knew that all of the new gen-3's were based off of the DNA extracted from this baby. It all seemed like a conspiracy. He had only heard rumors of this child. It wasn't until later that X6-88 met him. He was the glory child. He was the shining savior. The Institute was placing its future in the hands of a child. How foolish.

However he had been wrong. He had been so wrong. X6 watched this young boy grow into a capable and intelligent man. His admirable accomplishments not only allowed him to become inducted as a member of the staff, he also was the one that sought out the perfection of a reversal serum to the FEV virus, and found it at the hands of a team of scientists. He reorganized the sects of the Institute, giving them structure and purpose. In all of his years, X6 had never seen a more capable leader. Dr. Zimmer elevated Father's position to his protégée.

Then…Codename Alpha happened.

He was the first courser to ever escape. The alarms blared as all the doors shut to lockdown in the Institute. Designation A3-21 was a senior courser to X6-88. There had been no prior indication of discontent, but one day he just vanished. Dr. Zimmer screamed and threw things across the board table in fury. The heads of the Institute were fearful, Shaun among them. Courser training was meant to indoctrinate the utmost core values of the Institute in every agent. They were equipped with the highest training and knowledge they had to offer; so when A3-21 went AWOL, it threw the Institute off its axis. The heads of the room decided to dub the incident 'Codename Alpha.'

X6-88 was ordered to reprogram A3-21's watch from the Institute so that it sent back pings of the courser's location. Appearing to have worked, they had been receiving location markers heading far south to a region known as the Capital Wasteland until it cut off at a place called Rivet City. Not even a month before the signal cut out, Dr. Zimmer took a synth with him to track down A3-21. He was there for a few weeks before returning with the chip, a solemn look on his face. With the help of a Lone Wanderer, he had discovered A3's unfortunate demise. Doors to the safe were shut tight as the chip was locked away. The situation was said to be resolved.

Two years later, Dr. Zimmer passed away and Shaun took up the position as director of the Institute. They were to call him Father.

Something about Codename Alpha never sat right with X6-88. It all happened too seamlessly and without proper explanation. Trust your instinct. It was the reason he was considered one of the best coursers. One day, X6 approached Father with a proposal: he wanted to unlock the safe in order to analyze the recovered chip.

Father always seemed to have a slight affinity for X6-88. He was the one that brought him to the Institute. For some reason, this had caused Father too always look more highly upon his accomplishments. Just as he suspected, Father agreed.

X6-88 disassembled and hacked into the chip to uncover something that confirmed his suspicions. The chip had been tampered with and removed by human hands. This was enough evidence to convince Father to agree to send him on a mission to Rivet City. X6 remembered the last directive Father had given him as he had begun to walk away: "Make an example out of him."

The Capital Wastelands were undoubtedly more dismal and stripped than the worst parts of the Commonwealth; almost an embodiment of death itself. When X6-88 reached Rivet City, he was welcomed. The people here had never even heard of a courser before. This made it easy to get information out of them.

Eventually all of his sources pointed him towards a person named Dr. Pinkerton, an underground legend. Through much exhaustive searching, X6 managed to track him down to the submerged bow of the ship that was Rivet City. There he found all the answers he needed. Designation A3-21 sought out Dr. Pinkerton for a facial reconstruction and memory wipe and was now masquerading around Rivet City as a security guard named Harkness. Dr. Pinkerton then proceeded to reveal the before and after pictures of his work to X6. Then the name Victoria Watts came up. This woman had taken an apparent vested interest in A3-21's escape. X6 grinned and thanked the doctor for his information. Then he splattered his brains all over the walls of the secluded laboratory. His eyes had bulged with betrayal as multiple lasers pierced his body. No one interfered with the Institute.

This still didn't answer what had happened to the tampered chip. Killing Harkness would have to wait for a few more days. Victoria Watts was his next destination.

Watts proved to be even more tight-lipped and suspicious than anyone else on the ship. A more forceful method would need to be enforced. Late at night, when all Rivet City's residents were asleep, X6 kidnapped Ms. Watts and dragged her down to the secluded bow of the ship. There, amongst the gore and blood, he tortured her. He almost admired her strength and reluctance to speak, but it only caused him to push harder. It took her four full days to break before X6 slit her throat. She had been the one that tampered with the chip. Victoria Watts, representative of the Railroad. That was the first time the Institute ever heard of them.

Harkness was surprisingly easy to take out. Father ordered him to make an example out of this synth and that he would. In the middle of the marketplace in broad daylight, X6-88 destroyed the last trace of the Institute's mistake with a bullet to the brain. The once elite courser, A3-21 died as the pitiful man of Harkness. Out of the pool of his synthetic blood, X6-88 picked up A3-21's plasma rifle that was now sullied, and walked right out the front door of Rivet City. No one even stopped him. He could kill every single one of them in a matter of seconds, and they knew it.

It was sometime after that, that word about the menace of the Institute spread from the Capital Wasteland to the Commonwealth.

Codename Alpha was finally put to rest. The plasma rifle retrieved from Harkness was greedily taken up by the Advanced System scientists who wanted to try replicating new ballistic methods on their older model weapons. The gun was renamed Experiment 18-A and was put on display for everyone in the Institute to see. It was a reminder that no one escaped the Institute. No one could leave. To all synths, it was a message that they were property and if they escaped, the only future that awaited them was the same horrific fate as A3-21.

Ever since then, X6-88 was regarded as the most powerful and ruthless courser to have ever existed. Father made no attempt to hide his favoritism towards him, as he was assigned him the most dangerous and important missions the Institute had to offer.

Suddenly, Father began making outrageous requests for new "child" synths. This baffled many of the members of the Institute for why would their director want to make a 10 year old version of himself? The Institute rushed to produce a child that met his demands. No one ever did find out why he requested this; he kept those secrets locked away in the recesses of his mind. The new technology revitalized the abandoned idea of the beta-series. The only ones that knew the specifications were the scientists in Robotics. Synthetic Shaun was the first beta. The prototype.

6 years later, Sole woke up.

Even though he received the same training as the other coursers, X6's success during Codename Alpha qualified him for this position more than anyone else. X6 was to protect his mother. He was given strict orders not to interfere until she sought the Institute of her own volition; all part of Father's little "experiment." Growing up without parental figures, X6 figured that this was the only way Father could test his mother's affection towards him. In the past year, Father had sent synth Shaun to the surface with Kellogg for a "project." No one knew the details. No one knew Father's plans with Shaun. It wasn't until one of their scientists, Brian Virgil, went missing that X6-88 was deployed to retrieve Shaun back from Diamond City. Whatever Father's plan was, it included keeping Shaun away from his mother; at least for the time being.

Then, she appeared.

In all her glory she appeared. Looking terribly lost and confused, many had a hard time seeing any of Father in her. She seemed too emotional, too rash. She was bright though, inquiring about everything she saw, prying every little detail out of everyone as to better understand them. This bright, new world was confusing yet fascinating to her.

Then, Libertalia. X6-88's course was set in stone as he set out to embark on his most important mission.

The Prodigy and the Legacy.

-End Notes-

Sorry for the history lesson! I wanted to build a foundation that connected X6 with Father and the past. It was the only way I could think to tie up loose ends between FO3 and FO4. I left out Dr. Li (who was in Rivet City) because it would've just made this chapter way too long.