It was a good thing that I gave Curie the discretion to deactivate Eversor doctrine on her and the other bots. She had signalled for a cessation of sadistic carnage within the shattered raider army and called for me when she found something off.
Turns out, there were some synths within the upper echelons of the raider army, a fact only revealed when some heads were splattered and the broken chips were found. By the time I got there with my platoon, the rest of the leadership were rounded up and were left moaning helplessly on the ground after expert delimbing by the Eversors. The stimpaks on them and Curie’s expertise kept them from expiring just yet.
Synths or not, they were slated for death anyway. Now it was just a matter of whether or not I got to end this short war or take it to another front.
A quick console peek found eleven synths amongst the pile of bodies. When the Railroad folk joined us along with the other observers, I gave a silent order for an Eversor to punch a clawed hand into one synth’s head to extract the programming chip.
“They yours?” I lightly asked, keeping any accusation or anger out of my voice. “Got ten more just like him.” The vault reps and the Minutemen general and colonels stared at the bloody component, the implications of it dawning on them quickly enough. Deacon and Desdemona shared a look, and had a hint of sincere pleading in them when they shook their heads.
“We usually mindwipe our rescues,” Deacon said placatingly, “But even if they did go raider, having so many gathered here...”
I nodded, already having an idea of who’s behind this. “So if they’re not from you guys, the next logical conclusion would be-”
“The Institute?” Cait cut in, and the moment that name came up, some people, particularly the Minutemen, began shifting uncomfortably and snapping their head around their shoulder as if a ghost might be behind them.
General Becker gave a thoughtful look before he offered, “Wouldn’t be the first time they tried to destabilise a place...” Some of his colonels nodded and both Desdemona and Deacon suddenly looked resigned, though the rest of us were clueless about what he was implying.
Well, I think I had an idea, but better let the good man explain.
“Back when people wanted to form the Commonwealth Provisional Government. Had several settlements sending their people for talks about the idea, get the foundations set up and the bigger issues ironed out.”
He sighed heavily. “The Institute sent their representative too. Turned out to be a synth. We only found out after he killed just about everyone attending the talks, and got killed himself trying to escape.” The general looked genuinely sad when he met my gaze. “Was the last time anyone tried to forge something greater for the Commonwealth.”
“Don’t forget the Broken Mask Incident before that,” one of his colonels added, a swarthy looking guy in bulked out combat armor hiding under his coat. “The Institute discovered synths and how did they announce it to the world? Send one out for a killing spree in the middle of Diamond City.”
The murmurs and nodding agreements quickly set the idea in everyone’s mind that this was another attempt by the Institute to stir some shit. I knew about the Broken Mask thing, but the reasons for the CPG massacre was unknown, maybe another malfunction?
But then again, why the fuck the Institute go about replacing random people with synths was a fucking mystery to me, so maybe they really were mustache twirling fuckwits. Plus, no other known malfunctions were known in the game, other than synths gaining proper sentience and wanting to flee.
I thought I could delay this meeting, meet them on more polite terms, but it looks like they went for a preemptive strike and took the ‘rawr I’m bad guy hur dur’ route.
“Curie, process the battlefield,” I ordered with a soft sigh. This was going to be annoying. “Troopers, go back to Caladan and clean up. This means you too, Piper, Cait. I’ll be back and we’ll go through a quick meeting later.”
I turned my attention to Gwen, and then General Becker. “The demonstration is officially over, you’re free to take back any information you’ve witnessed and do with it as you see fit, discovery of synths included.”
Then finally, I looked at the two Railroad VIPs. “And we’ll need to talk after this. Let me know when you’re ready for it, because it’s gonna be a long one.”
“These prisoners?” Desdemona asked.
I shrugged. “Synths or not, they’re leaders of a mob sent to threaten our way of life, which means they’re prisoners of the Nexus and will be treated as such. Their attempt might be a pathetic failure, but the Nexus has laws for this sort of things, laws you’ve agreed to when we hosted you, and these prisoners will be treated accordingly.”
Which meant, being clear and obvious outside enemies of the Nexus Severalty, synths or not the guarantees to their rights as human beings were minimized to the lowest level. Being raiders further removed those rights, so they were practically property now that’s worth nothing but the information they might provide and maybe some weapons and console experimentation.
Since they didn’t declare war, there were no rules of engagement or war crimes to worry about. Crimes against humanity maybe, but eh, don’t ask, don’t tell.
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As everyone dispersed, I remained on the massacre grounds watching the Eversors herd and carry off the prisoners, and the swarm of Sentinels clean up the corpses and debris. The dead would be stripped down and blended into fertiliser, their looted gear to be upcycled for eventual sale. Who knows, we might find some unique baubles and mods on them that might get the attention of the research bots.
I left the Obelisks where they were to serve as the marker of our new border. It wasn’t much of an expansion, but having the seven spires ominously overlooking a blasted battlefield should serve as a good landmark.
Once the place was cleaned up, I headed down to Station 81’s basement detention level, a level only recently converted for this duty. The synths were kept sedated for the time being while I began interrogation of the human raiders. Curie and a few reprogrammed Mr Handys were attending me in the cell.
This one particular raider was naked and bound upside down in the center of the room. “Fuck you! Get me the fuck outta here you piece of shit!” Six of his friends were chained to the walls, gagged and forced to watch. The audience was partially for show, but also because I honestly didn’t expect this many prisoners and so they needed to share the room.
“Now then, simple questions. Your final judgement will depend on the answers you give me. Please, to lighten my paperwork, lie to me.”
Ignoring his continual cursing, I squatted down to bring my gaze closer to his defiant eyes, appreciating in the console just how much control I had over the man’s stats. So different levels of imprisonment gave different levels of access, the more helpless they were, the more I could mess with their values.
Or in this case, enable lie detection. Not even Piper and Cait had that line in them. Was it an enemy only thing or did I need to unlock something?
I fixed him with a stare as I began the questioning. “So, what is your name?”
He tried to spit up at me, but Curie lashed out with a kick, knocking out some teeth.
“Fahk yoo!”
“Seems that your vocabulary is limited,” I sighed as I stood up, then gave a nod to the Mr Handys. “Begin recording.”
Entering the console, I decided to test a theory that was bugging my mind a bit, since this one was practically useless for anything else. Let’s see… Drag anything related to pain sensitivity down to nil. A nod signalled for Curie to tear out a chunk of the man’s calf from behind him...and nope, doesn’t look like he noticed it. Cool.
Now, change “Genitals=XY” to “XX” and…
The muffled screams of the other captives filled the cell as the raider stopped his defiant cursing and his body spasmed. Something was churning underneath the skin of his crotch while his hips grew wider with the crackling sound similar to crushing plastic. Suddenly there was a snap and the prisoner dropped a few inches as his thighs detached from his hips.
Then the skin between his legs wetly tore around his dick and sack, and the genitals were slowly pushed out of the raw and bleeding wound to fall onto the floor just in front of his head in a bloody chunk of barely distinguishable meat.
Our prisoner was unconscious, swaying slightly from the dislocated legs and left with a brutal gash that was supposed to be his...her new vagina. Curie’s tip to keep him upside down probably minimized the amount of blood leaking out, but he- she was still getting soaked red by a small and steady stream of it rolling down what was essentially an open wound.
Interesting. According to the console, this prisoner counted as having “Genitals=XX”, but had no vagina related stats appear. The penis stats were lost too. Buggy implementation of code change?
It took a bit before I got his...her...ah fuck it, the raider’s consciousness up. Eyes fluttered open in confusion before I reverted the pain sensitivities to default values. The prisoner gave a short cry loaded with anguish before expiring, but it was filled with such agonizing pain I almost felt the sympathetic pang of it despite my console-dampened emotions.
“Guess there’s more to figure out before console sex change can be safely used,” I said to myself, then looked at the horrified prisoners stuck to the walls. “Luckily, I might have a bunch of uncooperative subjects to keep testing.”
The panicked heads shaking in denial was nice I guess, it meant I could get some answers and finally try the lie detection. I got to confirm that it worked after the third prisoner was interrogated. I let him tell a few more just to confirm before giving him the Pinocchio treatment.
My bad for extending the nose cartilage too much and forgetting to factor in the skin around it. Also, who knew over-stretched veins could cause the man to bleed to death?