X6-88 stood in a rag tag GUNNER FLANNELs and half of a load out of LEATHER ARMOR. It was necessary to maintain his cover as an ex-raider that heard the news. The Minutemen were organized now and there weren't any pickings for raiders. But the Gunners were gonna press a full assault and take everything anyway. Maybe you could sign up, put some work into the fight and get a taste afterwards. A small taste, sure - but better than what was comin' to the raider gangs up north.
Plus, need some tougher crew with the Shroud out there.
Having proven himself sufficiently stupid and superstitious, he was awarded the rank of recruit and the duty of doing every latrine digging, scavenge sorting, slides downhill job. After an aborted attempt to head through the super mutant populations to strike at the Commonwealth's communities and open another front in this war where he ended up choking out one of the beasts to save his sargent from an untimely, battle field getting ate; he had proven the old adage "If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough.". He received a promotion to private and the duty of doing every latrine digging, scavenge sorting, still slides downhill job.
Exactly as predicted by the projected psyche profiles of the Institute. Because of course his creators were perfectly accurate, his programming often told him so and he took comfort in that. And the fact that machines couldn't feel emotions so the battle field scares he experienced did not stress him.
Now his unit was being recalled to Gunner Plaza where it would be decided which of the actual open fronts it would be assigned to. The western river front was unlikely as it was a slow, pot shot affair that didn't seem to be going anywhere quickly. However, the eastern seaboard was turning out to be just as bloody as everyone had expected.
However, this was the opportunity for X6-88's real mission. (He often found it nice to think of himself by his designation, reminding himself that he was just a machine. It's not like he was risking a life with his mission.) Units as a whole were assigned by Colonel Cypress himself. And the synth was certain that he could assassinate the Gunner's commander if given a clear line of sight.
The problem he faced was the layers of secrecy that also needed to be maintained. His utilization was not authorized by the Director. Indeed, she even implicitly forbade his utilization when she told the Directorate that Institute resources were not to be used in this war. To convince, er, have his programming accept this assignment Dr. Ayo had to point out that his ultimate duty was to the Institute itself and not any given director. And since the current one was what was once called a 'liberal arts major' and not even a true scientist, she could hardly help herself in not conceiving of the best strategies even if she had excellent judgement and battlefield experience. Hence, while the Director's ideas were being accepted by the Directorate and supported whole heartedly rather than the in cautious, tenuous way they had been; the actual implementation required some thinking that was simply beyond her from time to time. So not only was he assigned to assassinate the Gunner leader, he had a higher priority of not being caught in order to avoid a political contest within the Institute itself.
After all, he was just trying to help.
As X6-88 came into the plaza, he had to worry about a new problem. Not worry, concern himself with. That would not work either. A new tactical situation arose that he had to process? That sounds better.
His unit was not the only one awaiting reassignment. And in another unit was one of the synths that had been assigned to the 'friendship initiative' within the Railroad. There was no telling if there was an accompanying Railroad asset in the room for starters. But on top of that, there was the question of whether or not the synth authorized by the director to attempt something like this would report back X6-88's presence to her. If she followed the chain of command, the report would reach Dr. Ayo in Synth Retention first as he commanded the initiative. If the synth let something slip to her Railroad handler, then it would inevitably reach the General and he could barely attempt to start calculating how the Railroad would react to continued Institute synth infiltration missions.
X6-88 was grateful that they were both machines and let out a sigh of relief. The two synths did not feel emotions and would not give anything away in their expressions of their realizations.
"What's up with you?", a Gunner from his unit asked. "You look like you just realized you stepped next to a mine instead of on one."
"Just glad we made it to the Plaza without encountering any more green skins." The perfect and crisp words out of place with the slur.
"I hear that. Muties are a menace.", the Gunner agreed.
Eventually, Colonel Cypress appeared. He was clad in a power armor frame but that was standard operating procedure for most high ranking Gunner officers and to be expected. It was the sounds of Assaultron footsteps that had attempted to hide in the clanking of that frame that garnered his attention. If heard them despite their stealth camoflauge then it meant that they were positioned among the units themselves. Had they been on the balcony, X6-88 was still confident that the generic LASER PISTOL he had would have been enough to kill the Colonel with a few well placed shots on his exposed face. But with an Assaultron standing right next to him, he'd have to disable the robot in order to have a clean shot which would allow the opportunity to escape.
This did provide additional information: Colonel Cypress did not trust his own men. This was devastating to the assassination tactic. If he was vulnerable to assassination from within than that meant there were other Gunners fully capable of running the organization without him - or at least so they thought. So unless Colonel Cypress was a tactical genius or behaved particularly unpredictably, there was no reason to remove him from leadership instead of wittle away his forces. In fact, if another commander was more trusted and trusting, these Assaultrons would be moved to the front lines instead of his personal protection.
Fortunately, there was the other synth. She could relay all this information back through the Railroad. He could easily destroy his unit and then teleport back to the Institute for plausible deniability should the Director object to his actions...er, Dr. Ayo's instruction issuance.
While he was contemplating this, Colonel Cypress had apparently already reassigned his unit. Fortunately, his cover as a stupid ex-raider gave him an excuse to not be aware of what was going on.
