1
"Oh, Director.", Rosalind Orman exclaimed. "I've forward...ded...what exactly are you wearing?"
The Director looked down at her attire and back up at the assistant of Advanced Systems. "It's a suit. On one hand, I figured I probably shouldn't be uniformed as the General of the Minutemen when I'm making Institute policy. In the other, I'm also a pre-war trained lawyer and not a post-war trained researcher. So taking up a lab coat strikes me as a bit presumptuous - particularly since I expect to be too busy to catch up in night classes."
The woman waited for Rosalind to respond. "That was a joke."
"Oh.", Rosalind realized. "Of course, Directors are presumptuous. Shaun and his predecessor were as well."
The mother frowned. "I had meant that I don't think the Institute has pre-war education infrastructure for amatuer AI developers.
"Anyway. In my time, a CLEAN BLACK SUIT and EYEGLASSES were synonymous with anonymous, governmental science institutions. And since I'm not wearing a courser's uniform for what I hope to be obvious reasons, I've decided on this for now. I've moved serveral suits of various colors into my suite."
"You should move into Sha...I, mean take over the Director's suite.", Orman offered. "Everyone kind of expects you to take up the perk of the most luxurious suite in the Institute now that you're the head."
The Director frowned slightly. "I...can't actually. Even my cramped bungalo is...er, was - before the bombs, more spacious than the suite I have in the Institute now or the room I have in Vault 81. If I allow myself to start expecting or hoping for more personal luxury then I'm going to start seeking it. And being resentful when I don't get it. And considering the conditions of people in Minutemen settlements and the communities of the Commonwealth...too many people are depending on me to stay in a 'roughing it' state of mind.
"There are people directly under my command on the surface that don't even understand why I would want regular changes of clothes."
"Ugh.", Rosalind commented. "Glad I don't have to go up there." Then she thought a moment. "I don't have to go to the surface, do I? Director?"
"Not as far as I know.", she replied. "Now that's granted you can get a type 2 synth to be able to explain the project I gave you to a possibly illiterate Minutemen recruit."
"Oh, yeah.", Rosalind enthused. "Back to what I asked you in for."
The scientist gestured to the weapon resting on the user ledge of the Institute's development firing range. "Introducing...the Institute make, Minutemen model laser musket, mark 1 beta.
"Your design specifications were that it had to be reminiscent of the current variety of muskets in use to reduce training time for experienced personnel. Secondly, it had to remain modular for easy customizing. Thirdly, it had to be lower maintainance than the weaponry we sent out with synths as Minutemen aren't recalled to base as often as our sorties.
"So, let's take this case off. You can see we kept the inline layout of the weapon. Each piece is interchangable, in case one soldier works best with a scattershot lens rather than a focuser, for example. While the fusion cell is reloadable without the weapon open, everything else is still air tight once the case has been returned to the weapon."
Rosalind locked the stock into her shoulder. "Using a polymer instead of wood allowed me to drop half a pound from the weapon despite the added casing. And the casing allows for the same assortment of scopes available in use today throughout the Commonwealth."
The scientist fired off a few bullseyes from the weapon and handed it to the Director.
"Well, I'm more comfortable with pistols than I am with rifles but let's see." The woman then matched those bullseyes.
"Pistol, smishtel.", Orman dismissed. "Women are just as capable with a firearm."
The Director leveled a gaze at her out of the corner of her eye. "I served in Okinawa against the Chinese led forces."
"Oh, that's right.", the scientist remembered. "Er, well, with approval we can have the automated manufacturing of Facilities start cranking these puppies out by the crate."
"And who does that approval?", the woman asked.
Orman hesitated. "Um, you ma'am. You're director now."
"Then go ahead.", she stated. "Coordinate with Robotics. Have them prep...let me see, power armor suits per APC..., twenty two...no. Have them prep twenty five type two synths. Wipe whatever knowledge of the Institute you need to from their storage devices to keep security. They'll need their standard sortie programming with the ability to follow Minutemen commands and your user manual for these. I'll want them and five or six times as many of the new I-M Laser Muskets to be ready to ship out to Minutemen custody pronto."
"Yes, director."
"And tell Li she's probably late for a meeting I'm going to have in a few minutes when I reach the conference room. But I'll do you a solid. On my way to tell Dr. Binet to get to our meeting, I will tell him to prep the Synths."
2
The Director walked at a brisk pace. A brisk enough pace that the scientist chasing her was somewhat breathless considering his more intellectual, less physically strenuous underground life style.
"How can I help you, Dr. Volkert?", the Director asked him.
"The serum you have me analyzing.", the Bioscience member explained. "The liquid...from at least what I can tell so far, shouldn't be liquid. It has remarkably long protein chains. And not like a colloid like you find in say, mother's milk. Not only should they fall out of solution but rapidly at that. Chemistry still goes to entropy without out of system energy. These proteins are long like polymers.
"Where did you even get the sample to begin with?"
The Director considered her words. "Do you want to come on an adventure with me on the surface to a probably not too hostile site? Whatever combat that will take place is probably minimal."
The man wavered. "I'm not really cleared for such a task."
"Ah.", she acknowledged. "Then I'm going to have to play this close to the chest for a bit longer, Dr.
"Dr.", she left as she walked away.
3
"Thank you for taking your time out of your busy schedules to meet with me today.", the Director began.
"Well, of course.", Dr. Ayo started. "Considering your efforts to induct expertise into the Minutemen, we're all positively thirsting for any -if you'll excuse the term- minute you can spare. How goes bolstering the Minutemen?"
"Not as well as bolstering the Institute, if I can make my plans work out.", the Director snapped back. "Wallace is still working out despite his solving the difficulty with the main technical problem we've been having, right? Aren't we all glad I was able to recruit him without bloodshed."
"She's got you there, Justin.", Allie commented.
"If your department could operate/"
"My point is made, Dr.", the Director interrupted. "In that vein, I'm proposing two new recruits to the Institute's human capital."
"But no one we've been monitoring has passed our criteria.", Dr. Binet objected. "Right?"
Dr. Ayo nodded. "Not according to my department's monitoring."
"I'm approving her.", the woman at the head of the table stated. "Isabel Cruz."
Collectively the scientists glanced to each other. "Who?"
The director shifted in her seat. "Those of you in tune with events on the surface might know her as The Mechanist."
"You know who the Mechanist is?", Dr. Ayo jumped in his seat to lean over the table at her.
"Sit down, Dr.", the Director stated.
"Do you know how many surface patrols we've lost due to engagement with her forces?", he continued to object.
The Director took a deep breath. Then she laid KELLOG'S PISTOL on the table and kept her hand resting on it. "I have been spectacularly lenient with scientists that disrupt processes of the Institute before, Dr. Ayo. I trust you believe certain members are taking adequate care of the Institute's food supply, yes? What I did not intend with that...mercy, was for people to feel encouraged to make the place fall down around our ears.
"So allow me to ask you this, Dr.: do you have a rational objection based on the actual attributes of Isabel Cruz that I and the rest of the Directorate should be made aware of? Or is everyone in the Synth Retention Bureau getting a promotion due to one man's emotions?"
Dr. Ayo returned to his chair. None of the scientists in the room felt comfortable. The man offered. "You did state that the realization of our goals of redefining mankind will be to make a safer world. Considering the hostile actions The Mechanist has taken toward just about everyone in the Commonwealth show that she's counter productive to those aims. Allowing her access to Institute technology appears to be a move that will add to the problem."
The Director holstered her weapon. "Thank you Justin. That is a rational objection in need of an explanatory response.
"I've spoken with Isabel. She was attempting to aid the Commonwealth. She programmed her lead robots to help the Commonwealth and the people within. The organic brains she had access to were preserved from pre-war criminals two hundred years ago. The brains themselves, being human, rewired some of their neurology and leapt to some...unexpectedly brutal conclusions."
Dr. Binet objected as well. "Didn't anyone on her support staff catch that as a possibility?"
"And here's where I think she's qualified for the Institute.", the Director stated. "She doesn't have a support staff."
Allie exclaimed. "The Mechanist, a feared faction leader in the Commonwealth, was a one woman operation."
"Here's the deal people.", their leader explained. "First, let's be real. The Institute only takes the most promising minds from outside. I had to shoot my way across most of the Commonwealth and a bit that's too irradiated to be called anything but glowing to get in myself. Ms. Cruz designed automated robot design work benches from scrap and ran a land wide program of automotrons by her lonesome. She is a genius in any sense of the word.
"Secondly, that level of talent needs to be contained and directed. Now she can work for the Institute, under the guidance of you and your colleagues furthering Institute research and being under our direct supervision. What she cannot be are as follows. One: In the Minutemen, allowing them to believe they have the technical wherewithal to operate without need of consideration of the Institute. Two: On her own, when her next flight of fancy turns some other benign resource into an actual threat. Three: In the service of some other faction that doesn't have the Commonwealth's (or for that matter, ours in particular) interest in mind.
"To that end. I'm taking X6-86 and the other one, the blank faced one that always wants to talk to me about my combat expertise..."
Dr. Ayo spoke. "You'll have to be more specific, Director. There are many of the model."
"One of them. Tell them I'm taking them on a diplomatic mission. They're going to be there to look like synths of action, not actually start shooting. But they should be ready in case something goes south.", the Director continued.
"I'm going to bring Isabel Cruz in. Robotics will put her insight to use. We'll be one threat down and one asset up in the process. Understood?"
The scientists nodded. "Then vote on it."
"I'm sorry?", Dr. Li asked.
"Taking in an outsider is an important matter that affects all of the Institute.", the Director explained. "We have our children here. I may not be a quantum mechanic or a theoretical biologist and I may have some aptitude with the use of a firearm in a combat situation. But I'm not trying to change in the Institute into something it's not. I'm hoping that Institute is what I keep telling myself and a lot of others, now and in the future, it is. Not a boogeyman, but actually here to help in ways many people surviving in the Commonwealth have a hard time understanding.
"Now I'm all for having people believe we're what goes bump in the night. Actually being the villain isn't a part I'm in a desperate need to play. Hence, vote on it. Does the Directorate agree that we should induct Isabel Cruz, a.k.a. The Mechanist?"
Dr. Binet spoke first. "Second the motion."
"Aye." was chorused around the table.
"Now onto the second.", Dr. Filmore prompted.
"Yes, onto the second subject.", the Director stated. "Integrating the Institute into the Commonwealth's future government."
Allie frowned. "That isn't what I meant. I was talking about the second recruit."
"And I smoothly segued away from that topic.", the Director stated. "That way, I don't have to talk about it until I see the results from my attempt to induct Ms. Cruz. See?"
