Begin Recording

Leaving

Recording by Scribe Ellison

I needed to go home, but it didn't feel right to go without seeing my son. My real son. I found him in his apartment with 'Director's Quarters' on the door that slid open automatically when I approached. Shaun was sitting at his desk reading a report—except he wasn't, he was staring at it but not really reading, with exactly the expression that Nate had when he was trying to study but too distracted by his own thoughts.

I opened my mouth and suddenly didn't know what to call him. Shaun? Father? Everyone called him Father. He signed his departmental notices 'Father.' Before I had to decide he noticed me and looked up. "How did you find the Institute?" He just sounded polite but there was something else, hope that I would approve of what he'd created.

So I answered honestly, "It's amazing. I hardly know what to think yet, I'm so blown away. This place is so peaceful and you have so much… so much I didn't think I'd see again after I woke up, and things I've never imagined."

My son smiled, a true, happy smile before he said, "I hear you spent the day with the child."

"I asked him to show me around. Shaun, why did you make him?"

"A pet project of mine, I confess. An interesting variation on the basic gen-three synth, starting one out in the form of a child and building a mind with more learning protocols and less programmed routine. He's a fascinating project. Some issues still to be solved of course, but we've made remarkable progress."

"But why does he look like you?"

"Just convenience. Modeling it after myself seemed only natural, what with Institute records of my genetics and physiology. Physically, it's a copy of myself at ten years old. Different memories of course, though he seems to have some of my mannerisms. I've tried to erase as little of his memory as possible over time to create an authentic personality. He'll be here every time you visit, you'll have an opportunity to interact with him further. But… I'll admit, I'm curious. As a parent looking for a child, looking for a younger version of me… what do you think? Do you think you could love him? Like you would a real boy?"

The first thought, the one I couldn't say, burned in my throat. How could you set me up like this? Am I an experiment—no. So I answered the other thought. "He's a nice kid. But he isn't you."

"Yes, but I know I'm… not the son you were looking for. The synth is closer to what you were expecting. I wouldn't claim to know everything that you're feeling but I hoped that maybe the boy's presence could… could help, in some small way."

So he was trying to be kind. I made myself believe it. Maybe kindness just didn't come easily to a mind raised in the Institute. "...thank you. Shaun, I have to leave for a while. Let my friends know that I'm still alive."

My son nodded, not seeming surprised. "Come back when you can. I'd like to speak with you about the future of the Institute and how you might be able to help us realize that future."

I nodded and found the relay function in my Pip-boy. It was automatically set to return me to the place I'd left from, so I hit the button and—I couldn't help it—ducked down and closed my eyes.

My last sight of the Institute was my son with his hand raised in farewell, smiling in amusement at what I must've looked like all scrunched up ready to be teleported away.

A flash of burning light and then I was stumbling out of the molecular relay, squinting in the light of the setting sun. The sight of everybody eating dinner at the picnic tables, Dogmeat barking loudly and then Piper hollering, "Hey, she's back!"… it was as beautiful as anything I'd seen in the Institute.