As I write this it becomes clear that this story would be really different if the Sole Survivor had met the synth-hating Brotherhood first instead of meeting the very likable synth Valentine first. A+ game plot there, Bethesda. I try not to read everyone else's Fallout 4 novelizations because accidental plagiarism is a thing but I hope there are novelizations that explore all the different stories.

On the other side, since we are again talking synths in this chapter I am again throwing out vast swaths of canon to make the Railroad's mission make more sense.

Begin Recording

Railroad

Recording by Scribe Ellison

And I guess you want to know about the Railroad too, now that I've said the uncomfortable things about your own lot.

So I tracked down the Railroad. It was very spy stuff, a long scavenger hunt, a password, a hidden base. I only had Dogmeat with me because bringing a journalist and a detective along looking for a secret society was probably not a good idea. Nick and Piper had both wanted to come, and both expressed doubt that the Railroad really existed. It seemed too neat, too much like a story: the secret underdog rebels fighting the evil empire!

But they do exist and I found their secret headquarters. And found myself face to face with a spotlight and three very scary people, one of them spinning up a minigun. The sound was really loud in the underground room and I went very still and held my hands away from my weapons. Beside me Dogmeat ducked down, feeling the sudden tension. The woman in the middle, unarmed but no less scary, held up a warning hand. "Stop right there. You went to a lot of effort to arrange this meeting so before we go any further, who the hell are you?"

"I followed your clues looking for the Railroad. I'm not your enemy."

"Who told you how to find us?"

"Nobody. Your 'subtle hint' is kind of common knowledge up there, and I found the first clue at Boston Common and realized that must be what it meant." Actually Nick had told me the 'hint' but it's hardly unknown in Diamond City. What is unknown is what the phrase points to, which I'd known from before the war.

"So you guessed. Hmm. I'm Desdemona, and I'm the leader of the Railroad."

I opened my mouth to introduce myself and hopefully convince the scary pale-haired woman to put down the minigun when someone spoke from behind them.

"I didn't know you were having a party, what gives with my invitation?" a guy in sunglasses and a white shirt was leaning on the wall in the passageway, posing.

Desdemona turned to glare at him. "Deacon! Where have you been? And who is this?"

But the whole room had relaxed when Deacon appeared. He seemed totally calm. "News flash, boss! This lady is kind of a big deal out there. Em-i-ly Mason, leader of the new Minutemen, ring any bells? Half the Commonwealth is flying her flag!"

Desdemona's expression had gone from suspicious to speculative.

Deacon didn't let her get a word in edgewise. "And if that wasn't enough, the Railroad owes her a crate, no, a truckload of Nuka-cola for finally putting a bullet in Kellogg's head."

"So you're vouching for her?"

"Yes. Trust me, she's someone we want on our side. And her dog's cute."

At last the minigun powered down as Desdemona gave a nod to the woman holding it. "That changes things. So, stranger, why did you want to meet with us anyway?"

I let myself relax from the 'don't shoot me' pose and told them everything. "I'm looking for anyone who can tell me anything about the Institute. They kidnapped my son, so I have to find them. Find Shaun, and make sure the Institute won't ever tear apart another family like they did mine."

That was the right thing to say. Deacon quirked an eyebrow above his shades and smiled, and Desdemona nodded a little. "Amen to that. I think we can help each other, but I need to know we're on the same page. You know what a synth is, right?"

"I've heard a lot of things..." I hesitated, wanting to hear their viewpoint.

"The Institute created synths. Synthetic humans. They're mostly organic, part machine. Somewhere along the line they became more than just constructs. They think, they feel, they act just like you and me. But the Institute treats them as property. As tools."

Deacon, who'd taken the opportunity to hold out his hands to Dogmeat offering ear scratches, joined in, "They don't understand that in trying to create humans they've… created humans. With human dignity, and deserving human rights. The Institute is basically playing god, tinkering with their creations without any concern for them. From their lofty vantage as creators it's easy for them to deny their creations' humanity."

I offered, "Sounds like slavery."

Desdemona's voice lowered with intensity, "It does. We seek to free the synths from their bondage, to give them a chance at a real life. I have a question for you, stranger, the only question that matters. Would you risk your life to help your fellow man, even if that man is a synth?"

The only question that matters. I knew the answer, but I had to take a minute to think how to say it, to suit the moment. "As the General of the Minutemen… when the harvest needs extra hands it doesn't matter if those hands are human, ghoul, synth. I risk my life for people every day and it doesn't matter if that person is a human, ghoul or synth."

"Well said." Desdemona smiled, satisfied. "Someone with your skills, your beliefs, normally we'd recruit you. But we don't have the time to train up another agent. If you'd like to help further, talk to Deacon. You're free to go. Drummer Boy, Glory, stand down. I think we can trust her, for now." The other two headed back inside, without saying hello. Glory probably wanted to put down the minigun, she's really strong but her shoulders must've been screaming by then. Desdemona hesitated to give me a last look over, taking in my mismatched armor and guns, and the fact that Dogmeat was also armored but enthusiastically wagging his tail as Deacon petted over him. I took the moment to look back. Without the deep lines of tension in her face I realized Desdemona is no older than I am. We had a lot in common, both leaders of causes with people depending on us. It's no surprise I came to respect her a great deal and she eventually came to respect me as well.

Deacon, though, I immediately liked because he was cooing over my dog. He said, "Hope you didn't mind the reception. When you tango with the Institute you have to be careful of anyone new on the dance floor. But I vouched for you, nobody got shot, it's all good."

"Thank you. But how did you..?"

"In our little outfit it's my job to know things. And with everything you've done it's clear you're capable. A dangerous enemy and, I'm betting, a valuable ally. Still I'd consider it a close personal favor if you didn't sell us out to the Institute."

"Wasn't planning to, but it's still a big step for you to trust me."

"'Trust' might be a bit of an overstatement so far, but we just survived a hell of a crisis so we may be just a teeny weeny bit desperate for new members. If everything was sunshine and bottlecaps we'd probably play a longer 'getting to know you' game. But we don't have that luxury. I've looked you up, asked around. You seem like a good fit for the family. So Des wants to make you a 'tourist' which is someone who helps with odd jobs but isn't really a member. What a waste. I'm just gonna come out and say it: the Railroad needs you"

"Needs me? Desdemona didn't seem to think so."

"Ah, she was just thinking of the time it'd take to train you. And if you were some hick from the burbs she'd be right. But I'm betting you just need a few pointers and a target."

And that's how I joined the Railroad. Well, that and a hair-raising job with Deacon to prove myself.

Job done I was invited into the Railroad headquarters, a cozy underground bunker with brick walls. It's kind of a wonderful place, by the way. It has a board with sketches of suspected synths with connections between them shown by colored yarn and a blackboard with the Railroad's secret signs. Which I can't tell you about. I can describe Tinker Tom, since I don't think you'll ever run into him in the real world. The official engineer of the Railroad, he's a delightful and slightly nutty guy with a great hat he put together himself from useful pieces including a flashlight. We've had long disjointed conversations about making useful machines out of wasteland scrap and he and Sturges eventually figured out how to exchange messages and they have long, long-distance conversations about engineering.

I spent a lot more time with Deacon, who's the official errand runner. He's everywhere at all times, and I can guarantee you've seen him since you came to the Commonwealth. He visits the caravan camp pretty often in disguise to see what's new and we don't always catch him.

When the Institute creates a synth to replace someone they steal the original person—they have a teleporter, they can put a canister of sleeping gas in a building and nobody's the wiser. The synth wakes up remembering all of the human's life up until he went to bed, not realizing that somewhere in his brain is a bunch of commands from the Institute and the memories of the poor human getting their brain scanned and then the synth watching himself get dragged off to be experimented on.

Doctor Amari could give you the science talk about 'neural layers' and 'mental integration' but the short version is that the conscious brain starts to notice this other stuff is in there and starts cracking up. The human fight or flight reflex is scary enough, and the synth programming copy of it is a lot worse. Basically the box cracks open, the person realizes they're a synth and goes berserk. Or the conscious brain doesn't notice and the person continues feeding information to the Institute or whatever and not knowing they've done it.

The Railroad's mission is to track down these synths and wake them up so they can go berserk while safely restrained. Then the synth can make his own decision, to continue the life of the human his memories came from or have his mind wiped and start fresh. Once the synth's mind has been 'integrated' he's not dangerous and can't be controlled by programming and is basically just a person.

Not all synths are dangerous in this way. Some know they're synths and are consciously working for the Institute. The Railroad would like to know who they are to limit how much help they can be to the Institute. Well, and maybe kill them so they can't be any help to the Institute. When the goal of helping synths and the goal of fighting the Institute conflict, there's a lot of argument down in the bunker.

Oh, and coursers don't go berserk because they don't have enough personality to interfere with their programming. They can't be freed either. They're just that creepy.

So that's the mission and I was glad to get on board with it. I did a few runs, mostly with Deacon, in between other stories I've told you. Helped some synths, heard their memories of the Institute. None of the ones I asked about it knew very much, they saw white walls and white people and machines, and then there's the memory of seeing their own self being killed or hauled off in terror. A human would know what being in the Institute means. So that's a synth's first real memory, which doesn't help their mental stability either.

Ugh, I need to stop imagining that or we'll never finish this story.

Yes, I worry that I'm a synth. I've stayed overnight in the Institute. It could've happened. But I'm sure that Deacon wanders up here so often to make sure I'm still myself.

The 'synth zapper'? Deacon named it that. He suggested a couple of names, and that one was the most dignified. Doctor Amari found a frequency that unlocks the memory box in a synth's head and restores all their memories and Tinker Tom made a machine that emits it. Saying it like that makes it sound simple, but the Railroad was working on the thing for years and 'frequency' isn't quite the right word and 'machine' may not be right either. I don't want to think how many mentats Tom took while he was putting it together.

When I brought in the courser chip Deacon already knew, because he always already knows everything, and greeted me wearing a party hat and passing Nuka-colas around to everyone in celebration. "You really did it! Jenny got in touch with one of our agents and she described you but it was still hard to believe. It's been years since the last time we got an intact courser chip to play with!"

I pulled the chip back. "You can play with it after Tom decrypts the data on it for me. Gimme that holotape and the chip's all yours."

Tom plugged the chip in to his terminal and muttered over his keyboard for a while, while the rest of us hovered, and he succeeded where Virgil had failed. "Got you, you Institute bastard, I've got you! Look at that sweet sweet data!"

I looked, but green letters and symbols on a screen didn't mean much to me. A diagram scrolled past and Tom made noises of great delight. "Give me a minute to get this on a tape for you. Ooh, what's this for? I don't even know what some of these words mean but it's clearly a schematic. Ok, here you go." Tom passed me a holotape and turned back to his terminal. As far as he was concerned the rest of us vanished from the world as he got back into the data.

Desdemona was right there with a threat. "If you learn anything about the Institute from that data, it comes to us first. Or our relationship will be in jeopardy."

I raised my eyebrows. By this time I was a pretty solid member of the Railroad. "Des, I've seen plenty of what the Institute does to synths and people. Once I know my son is safe we're on the same page."

That seemed to be enough, but it was the first sign that no matter how much I was trusted with the Railroad's names and faces I wasn't trusted to put their interests first. And Desdemona was right, in the end I didn't do what she wanted.