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He looked down at the compound—the workers still loading water shipments, the guards changing shifts, the children darting between the stilt-walls of the rebuilt market square. The same people who had once stood silent and cold to watch a man die by firing squad now moved with purpose, with momentum.
The morning sun cracked through the fog like an old lantern behind stained glass—dim, golden, cautious. The frost that had laced the rooftop slats and security railings overnight had mostly burned off by the time Sico made his way across the northern perimeter toward the water plant. A pair of guards saluted him in silence as he passed, but he barely registered them. His thoughts were already two steps ahead—running lines in his head, tracing the trade routes on instinct.
It had been just over twelve hours since his voice went live across the Commonwealth.
Long enough for word to spread. Long enough for rumors to mutate.
He'd barely slept.
He moved through the side gate instead of the main entrance, bypassing the forgehall where a team of mechanics were already hunching over a dismantled generator, muttering about a cracked carburetor. The air smelled of hot oil and morning steel, with a faint undercurrent of chlorinated water drifting in from the filtration system down the hill.
The water depot itself was a flurry of motion. Trucks and Brahmin carts lined up like chess pieces in front of the reinforced loading yard, each unit marked with the black-and-blue sigil of the Freemasons Republic. The Republic's triangle glyph had been freshly repainted across the rear gates of both vehicles—symbol and signal, both. The unmistakable mark of safe water.
Sico paused atop the overlook platform, arms folded against the railing as he watched the scene unfold below him.
Magnolia stood near the staging tents, her dark coat drawn tight against the morning chill. She had one foot up on a crate of straps and was scanning a manifest with her fountain pen dancing in shorthand. Her hair was tied back with the same cloth she always used for serious days. Nearby, Albert was yelling something to a technician working the pressure tank valves. His sleeves were already filthy with grease and wet salt from the condensation vents.
Sico smiled faintly to himself, then made his way down the ramp.
Albert saw him first.
"Morning, Commander!" he called, giving a wave that sent a loose glove flopping from his other hand. "We were just saying we expected you by now."
"That predictable?" Sico replied, stepping over a half-unloaded pallet of reinforced bottle crates.
"Only when you care about something," Magnolia said without looking up.
Sico came to a stop beside them and let his gaze roam the entire operation. One truck was already half-loaded, the Brahmin handlers crouched at the rear, double-checking the rig tension and rear axle weight. The truck next to it had its back gate open, revealing row upon row of neatly stacked water containers—each labeled, sealed, sterilized, and padded against movement. The smell of bleach, metal, and treated plastic gave the air an oddly clean sting.
He turned to them.
"So?" he asked. "How's it going?"
Albert wiped his hands off on a stained cloth and huffed out a breath. "Better than expected. We've got the Brotherhood's shipment broken into two trucks, four Brahmin. That gives us redundancy in case one gets hit, or breaks down."
"Or gets rerouted by raiders or a collapsing bridge," Magnolia added.
Sico nodded. "Makes sense. You sticking with the standard 20-liter canisters?"
"For now," Albert said. "We had to re-calibrate some of the seals—those Brotherhood supply crates are… built different."
"They weren't made for water," Magnolia muttered. "They were made for laser parts and artillery coolant. But we've padded the interiors and fitted new mounting brackets. Sturges helped with the brackets."
"Of course he did," Sico said. "And the guards?"
"Six per truck, two per Brahmin unit," Albert said. "They're geared light but tight—leather-plate rigging, carbines, no laser rifles. We're not trying to start a light show if they get jumped."
"We've got Brotherhood escort meeting them halfway at Revere Beach," Magnolia added. "Their Knights will take over from there."
Sico's eyebrows ticked up. "That far east?"
She gave a small shrug. "Danse said they wanted to keep our people out of the marshlands near Lynn. Too many mines and leftover Institute traps. They've got maps."
Sico didn't like the idea of giving up territory mid-route, but the compromise made sense. That swampy edge of the Commonwealth was still littered with the skeletons of past wars—both literal and metaphorical. If the Brotherhood wanted to absorb the risk on that leg, so be it.
"How's morale?" he asked, lowering his voice just slightly.
Albert gave a grim chuckle. "Mixed."
"You can say that again," Magnolia added. "We've had some grumbling. Not a lot. But enough."
Sico looked between them. "From the crew?"
"No," Albert said. "From the town. There's already graffiti on the outer wall by the market. 'Steel sold here,' someone wrote."
Sico grimaced. "Just one?"
Albert nodded. "One that we've seen. Doesn't mean there won't be more."
"We're keeping ears open," Magnolia added. "Piper's prepping another follow-up broadcast to reinforce the message. She said something about telling the people that independence isn't a fortress—it's a lighthouse."
Sico snorted. "That sounds like her."
They stood there a moment, letting the sounds of the operation fill the quiet between them—grunting Brahmin, the hiss of shifting crates, the bang of boots on metal truck beds. Soldiers gave status updates over radio, clipped and steady. Someone shouted for more straps from the forge.
Magnolia glanced at her clipboard, then passed it to Sico.
"We've prioritized the crate loads. These five have the freshest fill dates and highest purity scores. Each truck carries three fallback drums—if anything leaks or cracks, we've got replacements onboard."
He skimmed the sheet. Every line was annotated, initialed, and timestamped. Weight totals. pH levels. Radiological scan metrics. Even a small red star beside the crates that had been hand-sealed by Curie herself.
"These go out today?"
"Just after noon," Albert confirmed. "We've got the route cleared and cleared again. Scouts swept for ambush positions twice."
Magnolia lowered her voice slightly. "Still no word from Graygarden. We sent a runner two days ago to see if they're still willing to join the Republic officially. Might just be radio silence. Might be something worse."
Sico didn't reply at first.
He knew what might be out there.
Not just remnants of Drenner's loyalists—but the fragmented cells of Institute survivors, Gunners turned mercenary slavers, even feral tribes that had once hidden in the sewers and now crept above ground under cover of storm clouds and hunger.
The Commonwealth was quiet—but never still.
"We'll send MacCready's team that way tomorrow," Sico said finally. "He's been itching for an assignment."
Albert grinned. "Of course he has. Man gets twitchy when he's not shooting something every few days."
Sico glanced back at the trucks, both nearly loaded now. The drivers were checking gauges. One of them—Samson, a young ex-raider who'd proven his worth during the siege at Quincy—was tightening his bandana and muttering something to his Brahmin like a prayer or a threat.
"What about the Brotherhood liaison?" Sico asked. "They send their man yet?"
Magnolia nodded. "Knight-Sergeant Roth. She arrived this morning. Unarmed. Alone. Took up position in the observation wing with her field gear and scribe journal."
"Want me to keep eyes on her?" Albert asked.
"No," Sico said. "Let her work. But if she starts asking about our tech infrastructure, you let me know immediately."
"You got it."
Magnolia jotted a quick note in her second ledger, then tucked it under her arm.
Sico looked at them both again—at the sweat on Albert's collar, the ink stains on Magnolia's fingers, the frost melting off the crates between them.
"You two," he said, voice low but full, "are the spine of this place. I want you to know that."
Albert flushed slightly and scratched his beard. "Don't get all poetic on us, Commander."
"I mean it."
Magnolia just gave a soft smile. "Then give us a few more engineers. We're training five right now, but we need twelve."
Sico grinned. "You'll have them."
He stepped back and let them return to their work. The trucks were just about ready to roll. Engines idled low, exhaling bursts of warm vapor into the cold.
The diesel rumble of the truck engines had faded to a soft growl behind him, leaving only the wind and the occasional clink of metal against stone as Sico walked back toward the upper yard. He moved with the kind of quiet focus that made people nod and step aside without needing a word.
The air had shifted.
Not in temperature—but in weight.
Maybe it was the knowledge that, within hours, Brotherhood steel and Freemason water would ride the same cracked highways. Or maybe it was the ghost of the broadcast still lingering in the heads of every trader, farmer, and soldier in the compound. Whatever it was, the ground beneath Sanctuary didn't feel quite the same this morning.
He paused long enough to give a last nod to Magnolia and Albert—still elbow-deep in their manifests and loadouts—and then took the east path through the inner wall arch, where the dirt road forked in two: one branch toward the Castle relay, the other downhill toward the farms.
The sun had begun to burn a deeper gold now, casting longer shadows across the curved tin roofs and stacked planter beds below. A flock of crows broke from a patch of bare trees along the ridgeline, lifting skyward like a sudden inkblot smeared across the pale blue.
Sico's boots found their rhythm on the path, crunching old frost beneath the gravel.
He liked this stretch of road. Not because it was the cleanest—hell, some of it was still patched with pre-war asphalt so cracked it looked like a map of fractured nerves—but because of what it represented. It was the artery. The lifeline. You could build your armies and print your manifestos, but if you couldn't feed your people, it was all just pageantry.
And the farms fed them all.
By the time he reached the gate to the east pasture, the morning had tilted fully into late-day light. Warm, but brittle. The sort of sun that gave more glow than heat.
He found Jenny standing on a wooden loading platform at the base of the main barn, clipboard in one hand, other hand raised to shield her eyes as she watched two young workers haul burlap sacks into a reinforced grain wagon. Her boots were caked in dry mud. Her long-sleeved shirt was rolled to the elbows, and a holstered pistol hung lazily from her left hip, half-buried beneath the hem of her weather-stained coat.
She didn't hear him approach until he cleared his throat.
Jenny turned, eyebrows lifted.
"Well, look who decided to visit the real lifeblood of the Republic," she said, her smile wide and worn at the edges.
Sico gave her a half-grin. "Needed to check with someone who actually keeps us from starving."
Jenny tucked the clipboard under her arm and stepped down from the platform. Her stride was brisk, efficient, the way it always had been.
"I heard the trucks left," she said. "Albert sent one of his runners ahead to confirm the final water load. Everything smooth?"
"So far," Sico said. "Escorts will meet them halfway. Shouldn't be a problem unless someone gets stupid."
Jenny gave a dry laugh. "It's the Commonwealth. Someone always gets stupid."
He nodded, then motioned toward the grain cart. "That for the Brotherhood?"
"Part of it," Jenny said, turning to walk him toward the open barn. "That's the first half of the dry load—razorgrain, cornmeal, split beans, and some hardy carrots from the east rows. We're storing them in ceramic-lined sacks to preserve moisture levels and cut spoilage. Curie gave us some preservative powder made from crushed fungi. Works like a charm."
They stepped inside the barn, where two more workers were packing crates—neatly sorted, tagged, and stamped with the green icon of the Freemasons Farm Corps. A smaller crate sat in the corner, its lid partially open. Sico peered inside.
"Tarberries?"
Jenny smiled. "You remember."
"They asked for it," he said.
"I know. And I told the Castle's crop overseer to pull all the ripe ones. They've got marsh beds twice as deep as ours. Perfect for berry root."
She led him past the crates, past a stretch of sun-warmed fermentation drums used for pickling and brine storage, and through the side door to the terraced fields. The land stretched out in stepped rows down the slope, each tier cradling a different crop—razorgrain to the north, tatos near the base, and a line of carrots and muted purple beans growing in the repurposed coolant tanks that had once been part of a water reclamation system.
Sico looked it all over and let out a low whistle. "You've done more here in a year than the Brotherhood's done in a decade."
Jenny snorted. "Yeah, well, we don't spend half our budget on repainting our armor."
They reached the edge of the fields and stood for a moment in silence.
Then Sico asked, "So how's the rest of the food shipment going?"
Jenny nodded, squinting toward the southern ridge. "Already in motion. I contacted the heads at Minutemen Plaza and the Castle. Sent the usual encrypted channels just in case someone's listening. They confirmed receipt and priority."
She turned back to him.
"Plaza's sending preserved goods—mostly pickled vegetables, dried meat, some smoked mole rat belly. High in fat, low in parasites. Their greenhouses are between rotations, so we're leaning on the Castle to make up for the fresh stuff."
Sico crossed his arms. "What about the shipping routes?"
"They'll stage at the Tenpines relay before dawn, then converge toward Boston Airport at the Brotherhood's drop zone. Trucks will carry the Castle's yield—root crops, bay herbs, and what they claim are clean radstags. Can't vouch for that part."
"Radstags?"
"They claim they're feeding 'em kelp from the coast to flush the rads," Jenny said, deadpan. "Which I'd call horseshit—except the samples came back nearly clean. If they're not lying, those things might actually be edible."
Sico let out a sharp breath. "And the Brotherhood knows about the food quality variance?"
Jenny shrugged. "I told Roth. She nodded. Don't know what that means yet."
He nodded, satisfied for the most part.
Jenny stepped around him and motioned to the southern field. "We're harvesting the last batch of razorgrain this afternoon. After that, it's seed prep and soil cycling for the next run."
He chuckled and rubbed his temples. "You ever think about slowing down?"
"Nope."
Figures.
She walked back toward the barn, motioning for one of the workers to check the water barrels strapped to the back of a cart. Sico followed, not ready to leave just yet.
"Any pushback?" he asked quietly.
Jenny's shoulders shifted.
"Some," she said after a moment. "Not everyone's thrilled we're feeding the Brotherhood. Some remember what they did in the south. Others just don't like sharing what we bled to grow."
"And you?"
Jenny paused at the barn doors, then turned.
"I think food's like fire," she said. "You give someone warmth, they stop seeing you as a threat. You let 'em starve, they'll burn your house down just for a taste."
Sico nodded. "Then let's make sure they stay warm."
"I'll keep my end," she said. "You make sure they keep theirs."
"I will."
As he turned to go, the wind carried the distant sound of a Brahmin braying in the distance, and the sun hit the hill just right—casting long shadows from the silos and fenceposts that made the land feel vast and guarded, like something worth protecting.
The wind picked up as Sico crossed the ridge, stirring the drying grass and the tired banners hanging from the upper towers. The old Minutemen flag—its blues fading and the white star a ghost of its former self—fluttered beside the bold new sigil of the Freemasons Republic. Both snapped in the same direction, as if trying to remind everyone below that even different flags could fly in the same wind… if only for a time.
Sico's boots struck the stone path that curved toward the northern barracks compound, where the Republic's military command operated in tandem with what remained of the old Minutemen order. He knew the way by heart, even though it had changed. Once little more than a half-collapsed armory with scattered rifles and scared farmers trying to act like soldiers, the HQ was now something else entirely—brick-reinforced walls, a proper command canopy wired with long-range comms, a courtyard drilled clean by boot formations and saber routines.
At its center stood the man who had helped build it all.
Preston Garvey.
He was leaning against one of the courtyard walls, coat open, his signature hat pulled low to guard against the wind as he scanned a paper dispatch. A small fire barrel nearby gave off a lazy curl of smoke. A trio of soldiers—young, fresh-faced—ran drills behind him, their footfalls striking the dirt with regular rhythm.
Sico took his time walking up, letting the sounds of the training yard fill the space between them until he stood within a few paces.
"You've got 'em moving sharp," he said, nodding toward the trainees.
Preston looked up, smiled faintly. "These ones listen. Takes some pressure off the sergeants. Gives the old bones a break."
"Old," Sico snorted. "You're thirty-five, Preston."
He chuckled, folded the dispatch, and slid it into his coat pocket. "Yeah, well. Feels like seventy after everything we've been through."
Sico glanced around, his voice quieter now. "You got a minute?"
Preston read the tone immediately, straightened from the wall. "For you? Always."
They stepped into the main command hut, where the warmth of the solar-powered radiators contrasted the crisp morning outside. The inside was simple—maps pinned across one entire wall, marked with colored pins and red wax threads. A radio desk hummed quietly in one corner, manned by a private scribbling time logs. The cot in the far end still bore the dent of last night's restless sleep.
Sico gestured for the private to give them space. When the door closed behind him, he turned to Preston, arms crossed.
"I wanted to ask your thoughts," he said, "about the Brotherhood trade."
Preston's face didn't react immediately. He just looked at Sico for a long second, then walked to the map wall and stared at the pins around the Boston region.
"They made the first move, didn't they?" he said.
Sico nodded. "They did."
"Asked for water, then food."
"And offered tech in return," Sico added. "Laser parts. Fusion cells. Synth skin."
Preston tapped his fingers against a thumbtack, not hard enough to move it, just enough to feel its shape.
"They didn't used to ask for things," he said quietly. "They used to take. Or threaten. Or 'confiscate in the name of the Brotherhood.' Remember the shit they pulled at University Point?"
"Yeah," Sico said. "I remember."
"They rousted an entire settlement at gunpoint just to pull reactor coils out of the hospital basement. Left the people there with nothing but a ration list and an escort that vanished after two days."
Sico waited.
"So yeah," Preston said finally, stepping back from the wall. "It's strange. That they came to us first. That they asked."
"You think it's a trap?"
Preston gave a slow shake of the head. "No. I don't think Danse is playing games. He's changed. I saw it in his eyes during that meeting. Saw it when he stood behind you during the broadcast. The old Brotherhood never stood behind anyone but themselves."
Sico exhaled, letting some of the tension bleed out. "So what then?"
Preston moved to the nearby table, picked up a canteen, and poured two cups from the boiled water inside. He handed one to Sico, then sat on the edge of the table, legs dangling, gaze thoughtful.
"I think they're scared," he said. "Maybe not Danse. Maybe not the top brass. But the rank and file? The ones who guard the stations, walk the walls, patch up the vertibirds every night? They know what's coming. Winter's closing in. Rations running thin. Settlements out there used to depend on us for help, and now they're looking to us again—but not for patrols."
"For food," Sico said.
"And water," Preston added. "And maybe something more. Maybe leadership that isn't obsessed with purity and doctrine."
Sico drank, the heat of the cup warming his fingers. "So what's your verdict? We made a mistake?"
Preston shook his head. "No. I think we made the only move we could. You extended a hand. We'll see if they hold it—or if they try to yank us off balance. But one thing's for sure—this has changed the game."
He got up, walked to the window slit, and looked out over the training yard.
"People out there," he said, nodding toward the open land beyond the walls. "They're watching. More than ever. And not just us. I've already gotten reports from Greentop, Oberland, and Outpost Zimonja. They're nervous."
"Think we're aligning with steel," Sico guessed.
"Some of them, yeah. But others?" Preston glanced back. "They're hopeful. Because you stood up and said this wasn't submission. That it was trade. A republic acting like one."
He paused.
"You gave people something to believe in again."
Sico let that sit.
He wasn't used to Preston offering praise like that. Not because he wasn't generous, but because he didn't deal in shallow reassurance. When he said something mattered, it was because he'd thought about it for hours, maybe days.
Sico moved toward the other window, looked out in the opposite direction—toward the far hills, where the Brotherhood would one day come riding up the old broken causeways in power armor to collect their food.
"I don't trust them yet," he said. "Not fully. But I trust their desperation."
"Same here," Preston said. "And sometimes desperation makes for the best diplomacy."
They shared a quiet moment. Outside, the drill sergeant barked another cadence. Boots thundered. The fire barrel popped.
"Anything I should know?" Sico asked, finally shifting back into command mode.
Preston nodded. "Couple of things. There's increased radio chatter near ArcJet. Not raiders. Too structured. Might be one of the old BoS recon posts coming back online."
"We'll send someone to check?"
"Already have. Sturges took an encrypted beacon with him and a militia team. Should report by sundown."
"Good," Sico said. "Keep me posted."
He moved to leave, but Preston called out after him.
"Sico."
He turned.
Preston held his gaze for a beat, then said, "No matter how far this trade deal goes… don't stop being who we are. We're the line in the dirt, remember? The ones who said no more kings, no more warlords."
Sico nodded. "We haven't forgotten."
He left the HQ with the afternoon sun slipping behind the edge of the western gate towers. The wind was colder now, more bitter—but still moving in the same direction.
________________________________________________
• Name: Sico
• Stats :
S: 8,44
P: 7,44
E: 8,44
C: 8,44
I: 9,44
A: 7,45
L: 7
• Skills: advance Mechanic, Science, and Shooting skills, intermediate Medical, Hand to Hand Combat, Lockpicking, Hacking, Persuasion, and Drawing Skills
• Inventory: 53.280 caps, 10mm Pistol, 1500 10mm rounds, 22 mole rats meat, 17 mole rats teeth, 1 fragmentation grenade, 6 stimpak, 1 rad x, 6 fusion core, computer blueprint, modern TV blueprint, camera recorder blueprint, 1 set of combat armor, Automatic Assault Rifle, 1.500 5.56mm rounds, power armor T51 blueprint, Electric Motorcycle blueprint, T-45 power armor, Minigun, 1.000 5mm rounds, Cryolator, 200 cryo cell, Machine Gun Turret Mk1 blueprint, electric car blueprint, Kellogg gun, Righteous Authority, Ashmaker, Furious Power Fist, Full set combat armor blueprint, M240 7.62mm machine guns blueprint, Automatic Assault Rifle blueprint, and Humvee blueprint.
• Active Quest:-