Sorry once again for the delay, which was three times as long as I meant to keep y'all waiting but y'all get three times as many new chapters as expected so I hope it evens out!

Begin Recording

Visiting the Institute

Recording by Scribe Ellison

I did spend more time in the Institute, usually evenings when I didn't have to be running around putting out fires. Sometimes literally, I think it was in those days that another raider gang decided to move into Saugus Ironworks and they turned something on and lit the forest on fire and then Abraham Finch suggested that with a few more people they could hold the building and Sturges started drooling over the forges. It all got set up, eventually. Days like that when I'd spent hours running back and forth trying to convince the ghouls at the Slog that if they could spare some crops now we could mass produce bullets later I was ready to run off to the Institute and hide somewhere calm.

I tried to get to know all the divisions. Rosalind Ormon was happy to talk laser weapons. It was really strange to be at a firing range again, and Rosalind is the same kind of goofy competitive as some of Nate's army buddies who we shot with so there was this strange nostalgia.

I wanted to get to know Doctor Li as well, but she was uninterested. I got a few brief answers, things like 'The Brotherhood made everything possible, then took over. And that was the more rational Brotherhood. The airship is your problem, my research is mine.' And there I was wishing I could hear the whole story of what happened in Capital Wasteland from someone who'd been right in the middle of it but knowing she had no interested in sharing. So I left her alone like she wanted.

Thankfully Allie Filmore was interested in chatting. She was curious about the surface and the Brotherhood and kind of… everything. Scientists. She's the mother of a boy, so she could imagine how I felt after learning the truth about my own son and reached out in kindness. We just got along. Her son Quentin is a bit of a handful and my Shaun is too sometimes so we still talk often.

The kid still followed me around whenever he could. I asked if he minded me calling him that and he said it was fine, "It's because I have the same name as Father, right? I wonder why he gave me the same name. It confuses people."

"Maybe he just thinks it's a good name." I lied.

The boy introduced me to the people he knew. Doctor Watson was one of his teachers, and Doctor Binet was patient with the boy for a surprising reason.

"His girlfriend is a synth?" I repeated the fact that contradicted everything I knew about the Institute.

"Kind of." The kid said. "They're not really going out but Eve lives with him and Liam. She's a personal synth."

"Can I meet her?" I asked. My first thought was curiosity. My second thought was, ...how personal is personal? When I'd described synths in the Institute Piper had asked, "Nobody's made the synth of his dreams and programmed her so she can't say no?" and I'd been able to say there was no sign of anything like that going on, unless this was it. I couldn't imagine Doctor Binet as that kind of man, but I was certainly going to check.

"Sure. Now if you want."

We weren't doing anything so the kid and I went up to the Binet family's quarters. The door was open so they were available to visitors. The kid leaned in the doorway and called, "Eve? Want to meet my friend Em?"

Eve came out of the kitchen area. She's a thin-faced woman with dark hair scooped back from her face, and I was surprised to find her an ordinary woman rather than a raving beauty. But she had a welcoming smile. "Oh, it's you! Alan's mentioned meeting you. I'm Eve."

"Nice to meet you."

"You want to know what I am of course."

I made an apologetic face, "I don't mean to be rude, but I am curious. What's a 'personal synth'?"

"Doctor Binet is carrying out a social experiment, he wants to see if a synth can integrate into a human family."

"Do you like being part of this experiment? Did you have a choice?"

"Ah, I see what you're asking and it's very kind of you. The whole project was explained to me and I decided to accept it. I know I can never replace Alan's wife or be a real mother to Liam, but I can at least help with the domestic duties. I like to think I'm a pretty good cook!" She does sound honestly proud, but also sad.

"Eve's a really good cook." the kid said.

So we talked about cooking for a while and then Liam Binet came home and joined in since by then we'd got past prewar cooking and on to how to roast bloatfly over a fire. Like his father he's patient with the boy and now I understand it's because of Eve. Knowing her as a family member has given them a different perspective on synths so they don't mind the kid acting like a kid. It was a nice afternoon. I never did ask straight out just how personal a personal synth is, but there was no sign that she was anything but happy in her family.

The scientists in Bioscience too were happy to have me around. I admired the gorillas appropriately, I was happy to join in the debates over which animal should be created next, and I knew a lot about farming on the surface. Doctor Holdren had a lot of questions about surface soil and asked for samples from different areas of the Commonwealth where plants grew naturally. I knew a lot of those places, because anywhere the ground was good enough for weeds it might be good enough for crops or even trees. I was hoping to learn the secrets of the Institute's trees, and was sad to learn that all attempts to grow trees outside had failed. I let people talk my ears off over theories of why the trees wouldn't grow while we hung around watching the gorillas.