Fallout: Fury Blood

Chapter 143: To Be Human

“Patriot.”

“Yes, M7-97?”

“Did you choose your name?”

The boy—M7-97 had decided he was only a boy, barely into puberty—nodded distractedly as he plugged away at the power console. “I did.”

“Why?”

“I suppose I thought it was fitting.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s ironic, I guess.”

“...But why?”

With a sigh, Patriot finally lifted his attention from the control console. “Because what I’m about to do is anything but patriotic.”

The synth had frowned at that. It would require further thought later, once he was in a more secure environment. Another thought struck him. “If you chose this name for yourself, what original designation did your creators assign you?”

A fond smile broke out across Patriot’s face. “You mean my mother and father. Humans don’t have designations, we have names. But I can’t tell you my real name, I’m sorry, M7-97. Listen, you have to understand that I’ve never personally helped a synth to escape before. I usually have help from another synth, an agent, I guess you could call him. But when you escaped, there was so much chaos, everything happened so fast, I just didn’t have time to organize with him. I need you to promise you won’t tell them my age or what I look like.”

“Alright.”

“No. You have to promise. Say it.”

“Alright, I promise.” What an odd sentiment. What did saying the words matter?

The boy seemed pleased. “If my identity leaks out to the Railroad, then the Institute could find out through them and I’ll get exiled to the surface world.”

“But you’re sending me to the surface world.” He struggled to understand. “Why don’t you escape with me?”

“Because the Institute is my home. I’m not a slave here, like you are. It will be better for you up there, you’ll see.”

Curious, Danse thought at the time, remembering his old self as he stood in that teleportation chamber. Calibration diodes winked at him from it's confines, disorienting him. Beyond the chamber, Patriot was swallowed by the crowding darkness of the control room, the only light sources coming from the lights on the console he worked, and the glass elevator shaft behind him.

It had been a stroke of luck that the boy had managed to ferry him up here, at the apex of the Institute, without being detected. Disguised as a scientist in a visored clean room suit, he had been ushered from hall to hall, room to room, for what felt like hours before they could make a clean break for the elevator from the lower levels of the Institute. So many foreign spaces and so much colossal machinery that it had set M7-97’s mind amok. He had no idea how expansive the Institute really was. And now he was being told that there was a whole other world out there, up there, waiting for him.

“Will I remember you?”

“Not after you have the mind-wipe. The Railroad usually give escaped synths a choice to have their memories of the Institute wiped or to leave them intact. But for you, I think it’s necessary after everything they’ve done to you. If they wanted a psychopathic killing machine, they got one, just not the way they wanted one.”

“Am I a monster?”

“No, M7-97. You weren’t monster enough for them. What Father meant when he called you a failure was that you were too human.”