542. Order 66

If you want to read 20 Chapters ahead, be sure to check out my Patreon!!!

Go to https://www.patreon.com/Tang12

___________________________

Sico finally allowed himself a breath. Not relief—no, not yet. But focus. Resolve. The war hadn't begun, but the first move had been made.

A cold, salty breeze swept in from the Atlantic and stirred the red-and-white Brotherhood flags that lined the temporary scaffolding of the construction site. The eastern horizon glowed a pale orange in the early dawn, casting long shadows across the cracked tarmac and rusted hangars of the Boston Airport. The space that once ferried civilians across the pre-war Commonwealth was now ground zero for something far more ominous: the resurrection of Liberty Prime.

Massive cranes groaned under the strain of lifting metallic limbs, each segment of the towering robot suspended like relics from a forgotten age. The open field to the north of the Brotherhood's main airfield had been cleared and reinforced, rows of prefabricated structures erected to house power tools, fabrication equipment, and hundreds of crates filled with heavy-duty parts. Steel plates and titanium rods clanked and rang as Brotherhood engineers labored around the skeleton of Prime, its giant torso lying horizontal atop a massive rotating cradle. Its empty eye sockets stared into the rising sun, lifeless, yet somehow accusing.

Dr. Madison Li stood in the center of the construction yard, wearing her lab coat over Brotherhood fatigues, tablet in hand, her eyes fixed on the schematics glowing against the screen. Despite the noise—cutting torches, shouted orders, the droning roar of Vertibird engines coming and going from the nearby flight pad—she was a pillar of focus.

"Slow it down," she called sharply, her voice cutting through the din. "The neural actuator casing isn't aligned. If we bolt that down wrong, we'll be replacing it again next week."

A nearby technician glanced up at her from the power lifter. "We were told to push forward, ma'am. Paladin Lancer says—"

"I don't care what Lancer says," Madison snapped, turning toward him with a fire in her eyes. "If Liberty Prime collapses mid-mission because someone wanted to save ten minutes on actuator alignment, it won't be his problem—it'll be mine."

The young man flinched slightly, nodded, and relayed new instructions to the crane operator. Madison exhaled hard and rubbed her temple with the back of her glove.

From across the scaffolding, a mechanical whir announced the arrival of Proctor Ingram. She rolled up beside Madison in her exosuit-equipped wheelchair, metal limbs hissing with each adjustment. Ingram's armor bore the heavy wear of years of service, grease stains darkened her gloves, and her ever-present welding goggles were pushed up into her ash-blonde hair.

"You're going to burn yourself out at this pace," Ingram said, her tone light but not without a sliver of concern. "You've been at it since zero four hundred."

Madison gave her a sideways look. "We lost too much time with the previous sabotage. If this build doesn't hit stage three diagnostics by next week, we might as well start from scratch."

Ingram leaned her elbows against a workstation and watched the rising structure of Prime's leg assembly being maneuvered into place. "Still think your former friends are planning to pull another stunt?"

"Friends?" Madison snorted. "You don't walk away from the Institute. You escape. And no—I know they'll try something. It's not a matter of if."

She tapped her screen again and flipped through a series of schematics and algorithm logs. A line of code caught her eye, and her frown deepened.

Ingram raised an eyebrow. "Something wrong?"

Madison hesitated. "No. Just… redundancies missing from the targeting logic. I know I added them before the last compile."

Ingram gave her a look. "You think someone's already tampering with the code?"

"I don't know." Madison's brow furrowed as she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "But I can't rule it out."

The wind kicked up again, sending a few nearby blueprints fluttering off a table. A scribe ran to gather them, cursing under his breath. Around the yard, more personnel moved like clockwork—knights unloading fusion coils, scribes inputting diagnostic readings, apprentices lugging cables and crates of energy cells.

Proctor Ingram watched Madison with narrowed eyes. "You're scared. I can see it. Not of Prime failing—of them getting to you. Again."

"I'm not scared of them," Madison said quietly. "I'm scared of what they're capable of. You haven't seen what the Institute really is. Shaun might wear a calm face, talk like a philosopher-king, but he's something else underneath. That place changes you. You spend too long breathing filtered air and watching the world through a screen, you forget what it means to care about the people on the surface."

Ingram nodded grimly. "Sounds like we should've dropped Liberty Prime on the Institute the first time."

Madison didn't smile. She only stared at the towering half-finished figure of the robot, its chest cavity open, internal power conduits like exposed veins.

"I built him once to destroy Enclave," she murmured. "Now I'm building him again to destroy my past."

Ingram crossed her arms, the servos of her suit quietly adjusting. "Then make sure it's your design, not theirs. Because if Liberty Prime's going to walk again, I want to know who he's fighting for."

Madison turned away from her screen to look Proctor Ingram in the eye. "I won't let them and you guys use me. Not again."

A distant boom echoed from across the city—no explosion, just thunder, but it still made some of the younger scribes pause and glance westward, toward the skyline of downtown Boston. The city loomed in the distance, scarred and skeletal, its towers missing limbs like Liberty Prime itself. Somewhere out there, in that fractured world, Sico and the Minutemen were preparing for what came next.

Madison watched the horizon.

"They're not just building an army down there," she said aloud.

Ingram followed her gaze. "You mean the Minutemen?"

Madison nodded. "They're building hope. It's a dangerous thing. The Institute knows that. They can't control hope."

"Neither can we," Ingram muttered. "But maybe we can control what comes after."

The sound of heavy boots approached behind them. Elder Maxson's voice rang out—clear, commanding, and deliberate.

"Proctor Ingram. Dr. Li."

They both turned to face him. Maxson strode across the dirt like a force of nature, flanked by two knights in power armor. His long coat snapped in the breeze, and his expression was as unyielding as steel.

"Elder," Ingram said with a curt nod.

Madison inclined her head but didn't speak.

Maxson came to a stop in front of the two women and surveyed the work behind them. "I've read the reports. You're behind schedule."

"We had to recalculate Prime's cranial control lattice," Madison replied calmly. "Sabotage from the last incursion corrupted several key subsystems. I'm not going to risk another failed deployment."

Maxson studied her for a moment, then gave a small nod. "Good. We can't afford half-measures. The Institute won't wait for us to catch up. And now that they've seen what Sico and his Minutemen can do… neither will they."

He looked to Ingram. "How long until weapons integration?"

"Eight days, maybe ten," Ingram replied. "Assuming the Gauss capacitors hold during stress tests."

"Push it to six," Maxson ordered. "I want Prime standing and operational before the end of the week."

"Six days is—" Ingram began, then stopped herself. "We'll do what we can."

Maxson turned back to Madison. "Dr. Li, I've granted you the authority to reassign any personnel you need. You have full access to our command channels and logistical files."

"That's… generous," Madison said slowly.

Maxson met her gaze. "Don't mistake it for trust. But I believe in efficiency. And you're still the most qualified person alive to complete this task."

She nodded once, accepting the terms.

"I also want a complete psychological analysis on Liberty Prime's command protocols," Maxson added. "If we're going to deploy him in the field again, I want to be absolutely certain we've eliminated any possibility of ideological failure."

"You're referring to the corrupted directive from the Institute's override attempt," Madison said.

Maxson's expression didn't change. "I'm referring to your loyalty, Doctor. I'm giving you this second chance. Don't make me regret it."

With that, he turned on his heel and walked back toward the command tents, his knights trailing behind.

As Elder Maxson's footsteps faded into the clamor of the construction site, the clang of tools and the grind of servos resumed their dominating presence. Vertibird rotors chopped through the morning air overhead, wind whipping the Brotherhood flags with a rhythmic flapping. All around them, the shadow of Liberty Prime loomed, not yet standing but undeniably present—a colossus on the verge of resurrection.

Proctor Ingram remained beside Madison a moment longer, arms still crossed, her eyes lingering on the horizon where Maxson had disappeared.

"You know," she said, more to the wind than to Madison, "I've seen a lot of brilliant minds come and go. But yours?" She turned her head toward the doctor, steel-blue eyes unreadable behind the glare of the morning sun. "Yours might still be the most dangerous."

Madison didn't respond.

Ingram shifted slightly, the hydraulics of her exosuit hissing as she straightened up. "If you're really with us, Li—if you mean what you say—then it's time to stop standing in two worlds. We don't have the luxury of ambiguity anymore."

Madison raised an eyebrow, barely turning her head.

Ingram gestured toward Prime with a nod. "You should pledge your allegiance to us again, Li. Make it official."

Then she wheeled away without waiting for an answer, the whir of her servo-motors fading into the distance, replaced by the bark of foremen calling out work orders and the thunderous hiss of power conduits being sealed.

Madison watched her go, eyes narrowed ever so slightly, the corner of her mouth twitching into a smile—one without joy.

"Pledge allegiance," she muttered under her breath. "To whom, exactly?"

The answer was not in words. It was in deeds. And it was time.

She turned, slipping her tablet under her arm, and crossed the wide expanse of the yard toward Prime's central processing terminal. The Brotherhood technicians nearby offered respectful nods as she passed, some weary from their night shifts, others too new to know the full weight of who she was. To most of them, she was just the head scientist on the Liberty Prime project—the brilliant mind Maxson had plucked from the Institute to get the Brotherhood's prized weapon of war back on its feet, but they doesn't even knew that she has pledge her allegiance to Sico and the Minutemen.

The command station was tucked beneath the scaffolding at Prime's sternum, housed in a climate-sealed container reinforced with lead shielding and biometric locks. Two Knights in standard T-60 power armor stood guard outside, their visors tracking her as she approached.

"Dr. Li," one said, stepping aside.

She offered a tight nod and passed through the doorway. Inside, the lighting was low, cool blue LEDs casting long shadows across walls of terminals, consoles, and servers. The hum of power was omnipresent—like a heartbeat. At the far end of the room, Prime's primary control interface blinked in a soft rhythm, waiting.

Waiting for input.

Madison walked calmly to the main console, placed her tablet down, and inserted her ID chip into the port. The system recognized her instantly.

Access Granted: Dr. Madison Li

Clearance Level: Omega-Black

She sat, the chair cold against her legs, and began to type—swiftly, efficiently. Her fingers danced over the keys as screens unfolded in front of her, layers of code, matrices of decision trees, and simulated behavior parameters lining the display like the neurons of a metal brain.

The command protocols were all there—armament targeting routines, gait stabilization algorithms, threat prioritization matrices, and ideological subroutine filters. The last one had been Maxson's demand: psychological purity. No subversive logic. No corrupted values. No room for deviation.

She opened that file first.

Her eyes scanned the code, line after line of cascading logic, each tethered to a hundred behavioral contingencies. She didn't need to modify much. Not yet.

She scrolled further. Nested deep within the ideological routines was a segment the Brotherhood had imported from the pre-war archives. She remembered writing part of it during her time in Rivet City, before the Institute. Before Shaun. A lifetime ago.

A breath.

Then she inserted a new block of code.

Subtle. Elegant. Invisible unless you were looking directly for it.

She built it in layers—one wrapper after another, buried beneath plausible diagnostic contingencies. It was a single command, something that would bypass Prime's normal command hierarchy. A hard override, executable only under precise parameters.

She called it: Order 66.

She typed it in carefully, embedding it deep within Prime's neural command structure, linking it to a trigger phrase and her biometric signature. When spoken aloud by her, within five meters of Prime, the phrase would shunt Prime's command loyalty away from the Brotherhood and redirect it to a new chain: Minutemen Central Command – Sanctuary Defense Network.

It was dangerous. If anyone found it, they'd erase her access and throw her into a holding cell faster than Maxson could bark the word "traitor." But she knew the Brotherhood. Their arrogance was a shield. They would never look for treachery unless the machine misbehaved. And by the time it did… it would be too late.

She sat back slowly, watching the lines of code integrate into the broader framework. There were no errors.

No warnings.

Just confirmation.

Command Protocol Update Complete.

Awaiting Authorization Trigger: ORDER 66

Madison exhaled—quietly, deliberately—and pulled her ID chip from the console. The screens dimmed, the command prompt fading back to its idle state.

For a long moment, she just sat there, fingers folded in her lap, staring at the blinking cursor on the screen.

It blinked with the patience of a machine. Tireless. Obedient.

Just like Prime would be… until he wasn't.

She stood.

Outside, the wind had picked up again. The sun was higher now, climbing steadily into the mid-morning sky, casting stark shadows across the towering shape of Liberty Prime. His torso had been raised onto its main support bracket while she worked, and a team of engineers now swarmed his waist assembly, prepping the gyroscopic linkage systems.

Madison stepped back into the light, shielding her eyes from the glare.

Ingram was visible in the distance, hunched over a set of blueprints with two scribes and a senior Knight. She didn't look up.

Madison didn't call to her.

Instead, she wandered along the edge of the scaffolding, boots crunching softly over gravel and broken tarmac, her hands shoved deep into the pockets of her coat.

The world had changed since she'd fled the Institute. Changed since she'd come here. There was something rising out there—something the Brotherhood didn't understand, something the Institute feared.

Hope.

The Minutemen weren't perfect. Neither was Sico. But they were trying, genuinely trying, to rebuild the world instead of dominating it. She remembered the look in Shaun's eyes when he talked about his vision—how peace could only come from control. From hierarchy. From him.

But control wasn't peace.

And dominance wasn't survival.

She reached a quiet spot beneath Prime's shadow, standing between his massive legs like a forgotten ghost of a pre-war dream. The air smelled of oil and ozone and scorched steel.

She looked up at the mechanical titan, its lifeless eyes still staring into the sky.

"Time to wake up soon," she whispered. "Just not the way they think."

A sharp voice interrupted her thoughts.

"Doctor Li!"

She turned to see a young Scribe jogging up, tablet in hand. He was barely out of his teens, glasses slipping down his nose, sweat dotting his brow.

"Yes?"

He caught his breath. "Diagnostics are showing an irregularity in the lattice compile from last night. Something about recursive memory stacking. Should we rerun the compiler?"

She blinked once, then gave a faint, almost imperceptible smile.

"No," she said. "It's probably just artifacting from the backup merge. I'll take a look after lunch."

He nodded and ran off, relief evident in his posture.

She turned again to Prime.

And for just a second, she imagined what it would be like when the order was given.

When Prime stood again—not for Maxson's vision of Brotherhood purity, or Shaun's cold philosophy, but for the people scraping their lives back together from the ruins. For farmers and scavengers and children growing up in the shadows of broken towers. For hope.

________________________________________________

• 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:-