"Director, I must demand/"
"You demand nothing of me, Holdren.", the Director said in a very serious tone.
The man sighed. "I simply meant/"
"Save it for the meeting we're having in a half of a minute? Please?", she cut off.
"Very well.", the put off scientist acquiesced.
The now Director instead of General finished tying the tie of her CLEAN BLACK SUIT. Straightening the jacket, she walked into the conference room of the Institute to take her seat at the head of the table. Once Dr. Holdren had taken his seat she opened the meeting.
"I've come here to speak of a few things. However, to show that I am indeed putting the Institutes interests first, please. Dr. Holdren?"
Dr. Ayo cut him off. "The good Dr. Holdren's discoveries are, quite by definition, already discovered. My questions could potentially be more time sensitive."
"Really, Justin?", Holdren asked.
"Yes. Really, Clayton.", the head of the Synth Retention Bureau replied.
"General/"
"Director is fine.", the Director told him.
"Of course.", Dr. Ayo agreed amicably. "Director, I must congratulate your Minutemen...and your use of them. I was certain that intervening with the siege of Diamond City would bring you hear demanding all of our services in support of those who squabble among themselves on the surface. Not only did you manage to maintain what passes for order, but with primarily Minutemen resources and no unexpected additions of our own. There wasn't even a damaged Mark II despite my budgeting for exactly that. In fact, my reports indicate that the social order we're presiding over is going quite swimmingly. Bravo."
She raised an eyebrow over her BLACK RIMMED EYEGLASSES. "Thank you?"
Justin nodded. "I had thought to prepare a...report after you compromised our plant in Diamond City's administration. However, my other sources inform me that Geneva will make for an even more loyal asset. And a sentient one at that."
The Director went back to a poker face. "Well, I'll get back to that in a moment. But if you could prepare a listing for review of all of 'our' 'assets' on the surface, that would be of great aid. I may have to commend some of them personally for judging me worthy of your approval. And more complete than just your checking a list of names that I provide this time?"
"But of course.", Dr. Ayo acknowledged.
"Now Holdren?", she prompted.
"Dr. Volkert started analyzing the MYSTERIOUS SERUM you gave him. Then when he realized its potential, it became the hot project of our lab.
The man held up a test tube. "What's in this vial, were it to be injected into the blood stream and metabolized by a human subject, would increase that human's strength by a factor and render the person as immune to the dangerous forms of radiation found on the surface as we can determine. And considering its some how meta-epigenetic abilities that help keep DNA from eroding in the presence of the very radiation that accelerates the mutations, cancers and out right poisoning of an organism...it has the potential to retard aging."
Dr. Li gasped. "What do you mean by 'retard aging'?"
"No more telomere sheering.", the head of Bioscience informed. "No more cellular decay with age. Not faking it by replacing tissue with that grown from stem cells or cybernetics. Just the mechanism for aging going up in a poof of smoke.
"So I have to ask the Director. Where did you get this?"
"Can you replicate it?", the Director countered.
"That's not an answer.", Dr. Binet pointed out.
"And when I get to Robotics, I'll need your input.", the Director stated. "Now Dr. Holdren. Can. You. Produce. It?"
Clayton held her gaze. "Considering the output of our new reactor/"
"Which I helped bring on line."
"Which you helped bring on line. Yes. It takes a lot of endothermic reactions, a careful monitoring of enthalpy states, and more stress than I've ever given Dr. Fillmore in my life. But I have more than enough to start human trials, with Directorate approval."
"Then I'll be taking the 'more' of that portion. I'll leave you to produce what will be needed for Institute personnel after human trials prove successful.", the Director stated.
Out of the corner of her eye, she considered the Mark I synth sweeping along the edge of the room. She had become accustomed to the members of the Institute ignoring them, even though she didn't. She also didn't know how adept its sensors were, or its memory. Could it only navigate its environment and carry out commands? Or could it monitor her physiology and render a psychoanalysis based on that?
"Now then, in answer to your question.", the Director started. "I believe everyone is aware of the fact that I am from Vault 111 and had many adventures before and during the one that led me back to my son. Often, I would either be engaged by or be hired or pleaded with to engage one of the gangs colloquially referred to as 'raiders'. The Minutemen had collapsed and there wasn't any other agency offering order at the time, you see.
"One of these times, I happened to find these vials. I don't know...how they are put together or what is in the solution. I do know that the raiders I fought with that in their system exhibited a tremendous resilience as well as unbridled strength. I was fortunate enough to defeat them. After a fight with them, I gathered those vials from their store of loot and ill-gotten gains."
"And where did they get it from?", Holdren continued.
"If there was a facility that was carrying out pharmaceutical research like this pre-war, I'm sure it's bombed out by now. Let alone anyone who had that type of expertise would be dead by now."
Holdren objected. "But if I'm right about the anti-aging properties, then they could have a life-span to survive these centuries."
"But not the expertise.", the Director reminded. "I'm ex-military, entered the vault in excellent health and I usually traveled escorted. If you believe that someone who never picked up a weapon and dedicated their life to medicine could survive the initial roving marauders, radioactive hurricane of an inferno, collapse of law and economy leave alone the deathclaws, super mutants, feral ghouls and other should-nots that have mutated into existence over the centuries: well, you're a biochemist with access to much more advanced Institute weaponry. Why don't you give it a try? Say a week?"
"I see your point.", Dr. Holdren said. "It's just that if we had the initial research notes we would understand its purpose. Now, we're just reverse engineering."
"I sympathize with your plight, Dr.", the Director empathized. "But what can you do?
"Now, Dr. Binet. Is what I asked for completed?"
"And what did she ask you for, Alan?", Dr. Fillmore.
Dr. Madison spoke up. "She asked my department to redesign the Minutemen laser musket into something that wasn't a cobble together, jerry-rigged piece of junk. After this with Bioscience, I'm surprised she hasn't slapped something on your department's plate, Allie."
"My reactor is done.", Allie announced. "We're nearly twiddling our thumbs until one of you breaks something."
"Dr. Binet?", the Director reminded.
"Yes.", Alan acknowledged. "You wanted a way to blind study prove that even Mark III synths are not sentient and that no artificial intelligence or behavior yet developed is."
"Why would you task that?", Dr. Ayo asked.
"Two words: the Railroad.", she replied.
Dr. Holdren exclaimed. "But they're dead. You killed them all!"
"My son had me cut off the head of the snake.", she replied. "I was tasked with eliminating their leadership. Forcing them to take the time to reform. Well, that means that the organization would. And usually when a terrorist organization reforms after its most competent leaders are taken out, it comes back full of people too motivated by zealotry to be dealt with by anything other than retaliation. And that just inspires more hatred, revenge and a never ending cycle of War on Terror that ends up using civilian criminals as military target practice while suffering homeland casualties until an even greater global conflict puts their atrocities on the back burner.
"If I am going to rebuild the Commonwealth, I'd like it to not be one with a bunch of idealogues rampaging out of the shadows. So with a method to demonstrate that synths are only machines that can be used on sentient people (whether they're human, ghoul, Mark sixes in the future or whatever), I will be able to nip a lot of violence and wasted resources in the bud. Provided they make an appearance."
"And have you managed this?", Dr. Ayo inquired.
"I believe I have.", the head of Robotics stated. "While our Courser program uses the synths with the most potential, they're still synths. Comparing their problem solving and...I hesitate to call it 'creativity' to Julia's or Alice's actual behavior and the difference is obvious. At this stage, a written Turing test can be graded by ourselves can be used with a higher rate of probability than generating identical gigabyte random numbers."
"Good.", the Director stated.
"You sound like you're going to use it.", Dr. Fillmore pointed out.
"That's because I am.", the Director explained. "The General of the Minutemen is going to call out to any potential Railroad assets that remain in the field. I'm going to promise them safe passage for themselves and any so-called 'people' they dare bring to the test. I'll be padding the test group with random citizens and Minutemen as well. After judging the examined only by the test and test taker number and getting a one hundred percent determination between human and synth, they won't be able to garner any sympathy anywhere in the Commonwealth. Without safe haven, their organization will fail to become anything on its own."
"What if a synth passes the test?", Dr. Li asked.
"Not a chance.", Dr. Binet stated.
Dr. Ayo frowned. "Perhaps. However, we've both seen...behaviors that have made us question before. I concur with Dr. Li. What happens when one does pass?"
The Director cut in. "Your treating machines as if they are machines is based in the evidence that they are machines, yes?"
Dr. Fillmore shrugged. "Of course. We're scientists. All of our determinations are based on evidence."
Dr. Binet took up the conversation. "But the Director is right. Certainly, there are new members like Wallace and Cruz who would turn on a dime. And I suppose the children here would be able to 'learn new enough'. But there is a culture here of treating synths as tools. If we miss a synth in this test, then ethically we should test every snyth we have and deal with that 'person' should they be one."
Dr. Li frowned. "I remember a story I saw when I was young. It was about storing human souls in machines. The horror every human character had that motivated them to stop the crime was the thought of being turned into a machine. The ending note was about the horror of a machine being turned into a person."
"I agree.", Dr. Ayo nodded. "If X6-88, or any synth really, honestly backs out of taking the test because of programmed self-assessment, I can't really support 'forcing' them to 'prove' that they're 'real' and just 'wanting' to remain a machine."
The Director shook her head. "Any tool of the Institute will be used to further its aims, and repaired if malfunctioning. Any person attempting to avoid the responsibility of being alive...well, that's just criminal. The circumstances become extenuating rather than excusing at that point. If the initial run on the surface can find a single synth sentient, then we have a responsibility to order every synth to take the test. Regardless of any unintended behavior from fault programming."
