The synth had no concept of how much time had passed since her training had started. All she knew was every morning she would get up to train until Father told her to stop and to begin again the next day. Had it been days? Weeks? Months? She couldn't tell since she didn't seem to age and no one appeared to be interested in telling her. She would fight their toughest coursers and be taught how to use different types of weapons and melee tools. Her training was unforgiving, but she felt no pain, no uneasiness, and she never felt tired. It wasn't until they moved her to a new type of training. Learning to speak and interact.
She would sit in rooms with one person who would then teach her slang and communication skills. They taught her how to be sad, happy, angry, fearful, and even sarcastic. It took some time, but she had nearly perfected the art of speaking. Her purpose was nearly fulfilled. All that was left was to actually eliminate this person of interest.
A few more days had passed (or, so she believed) before Father entered her room and gave her a case full of various items. In it was a new set of clothes, a few guns and some other things that she didn't quite recognize. She pulled the clothes out of the case and they were not to her liking. They were rugged and dirty with many layers.
"You'll need to blend in. If she sees you in a Institute uniform, everything we worked for will be for nothing. So change into those, and I'll explain the rest to you later." Father steps out of the room and lets the door close behind him.
The synth changes into her new clothes and steps out to meet with Father. Once she arrives he gestures to her to sit down next to him. She sits and he begins to speak.
"You won't have all the time in the world to do this. She plans to strike any day now to destroy the Institute. We will send you out in a few hours. Be prepared, J0-23."
"May I see what she looks like?" She asks
Father nods his head
"Of course, can't have you running out there without knowing who you're after." He turns to the computer next to him and types in some code before a picture pops up. Her eyes widen as she realizes this woman looks almost exactly like her, the only difference being the item that J0-23 wore across her face, and their hair. While J0-23's hair was well kept and clean, with the bangs brushed to the side, this woman's hair was messy, with her bangs thin and covering parts of her forehead.
"You must be confused," Father claims "You see, I'm sure X6-88 already told you, but once you eliminate this woman, it's no doubt her friends and army will be coming after us for revenge. So it's up to you to simply replace her without them knowing. That will be the hardest part of your mission." He explains
J0-23 takes a moment to think about it. This must have been why they spent so long teaching her the communication skills. She would need to act and behave just like this woman to keep up a charade.
"I understand. I will not let you down Father." She said
It was soon time for her to leave and step foot into the Commonwealth. She collects her things into a backpack and pulls it over her shoulder. She steps into a odd machine and the doctors begin pressing buttons and the machine starts to whir. Father walks up to her and hands her a device.
"This will allow you to come back to the Institute any time, it will also allow us to communicate if needed. Do not fail," He says "Oh, and by the way. Her name is Zero."
She nods her head and soon lights begin to flash and a large beam of light blinds her for a moment. When she opens her eyes, she's no longer in the institute. She's in what appears to be the middle of nowhere. There's debris and rubble everywhere. Broken streets and rundown cars. The area felt lifeless. She looks around for any sign of life. She hears the faint sound of laughter and footsteps. She hides behind a car and peaks around to see what it is. It's a few men with guns, they're raiders. She learned about them during her time in the Institute. She's just glad it wasn't super mutants. They continue to walk and she takes a step back when her foot gets caught on a pipe and she falls backwards with a loud thud. The raiders turn to her direction.
"Shit." She thought
"Who's there?" One of them exclaim as the rest of them ready their guns
J0-23 figured there was no way out of this so she slowly stands up and reveals herself.
"I'm looking for a woman. Her name is Zero." She shouts to the men
They begin to laugh.
"What?" She asks
They waste no time and begin to fire their guns at her. She quickly ducks behind the car again as they shoot. She could hear the sound of bullets flying into the car, making unpleasant sounds. The bullets soon stop and the men continue to laugh. One of them gestures to the other two to surround the car.
They carefully walk to the car, going on both ends to corner her. The raider that gets there first peaks around the car and is suddenly face to face with the end of a pistol. J0-23 fires and blood spills from the raiders face. He falls to the floor, which alerts the other raiders to fire again. The second raider runs quickly to the car.
J0-23 braced themselves to shoot the next man before hearing a loud noise and a cry of pain coming from the raiders. She wasn't sure how to describe the sound, it sounded like a laser almost. She carefully peaks her head out from behind the car and sees three people, two men and one woman. They were minutemen.
"Hey there! Are you alright?" The woman shouts, it wasn't Zero from what J0-23 could tell.
She carefully stands up again and this time, she was greeted with friendly faces. The minutemen were supposedly the pride of the Commonwealth, once small in numbers, but quickly grew over time when Zero came to their aid.
J0-23 needed to think, if these were minutemen they were bound to know the location of Zero. But would it be too suspicious to ask where she was right off the bat?
"I'm okay. But, I could use some help." She says
"Sure thing, the minutemen are here to make the commonwealth a better place." One of the men say
She nods her head and looks around
"I need a safe place to stay. My last location was overrun with raiders, I've been on the run ever since."
The minutemen look at one another before nodding.
"Come with us, Sanctuary Hills is not too far from here. You can stay there."
J0-23 thanks them and follows the men. It was a long hike from what she could tell but eventually they made it.
"Here we are, Sanctuary Hills. You should be safe here." One of them say
"Thank you." She responds
"Say, we didn't catch your name, what do they call you stranger?" The woman asks
J0-23 was silent for a moment before responding
"Jo. They call me Jo."