[color=00aeef][b]The Institute, Director's Quarters[/b][/color] [b][i]“Warning. Code Black in Residential Sector 8B. Warning Code Black in Residential Sector 8B. Warning…”[/i][/b] Thomas’s glasses nearly fell of his head as he shot out of his desk chair once he heard the warnings, the alarms were blaring throughout The Institute. “HOLY JESUS FUC…” He heard Cait yell as she tumbled of the couch she’d been lazily dozing in only moments before and crashed to the floor. The half drunk bottle of Nuka Cola Grape that had been at her feet spilled over as her body knocked it aside, “WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?” As she looked up, she saw a frightened look cross Thomas’s face. One she hadn’t seen on him for a long time. “No…” Thomas muttered, the dawning horror of what the warning meant sending his mind into a momentary freeze. Cait pulled herself up, rubbing her sore backside with an annoyed huff, “Goddammit that hurt…oi Tom! What the hell is going on?” “Code Black,” Thomas replied, as he snapped out of his panic and began striding over to a corner of the room. “Code Black? The fuck is that?” Cait snapped back. She tried to mentally rewind and remember all the minute details from the protocol briefing that Dr. Watson had given her when she first came to The Institute: she was coming up blank. Probably because she’d fallen asleep halfway through it. “How the hell am I supposed to remember what that is? Watson had written down like three dozen fuckin’ different safety procedures to follow when someone slips in the damn shower. Tom!” “Synth Rebellion.” Thomas replied flatly he walked up to the wall. He punched in a code into a small mounted console nearby. “Wa..” Cait stopped in her tracks, “That’s not supposed to be possible...right?’ “No. Its not. Not with the failsafes I forced The Directorate to implement in the Gen-3 line. Yet here we are.” The wall Thomas was standing before slid open to reveal a brightly lit hidden storage compartment. As the wall opened up, two large racks of weapons immediately folded out and away to either side of him. The final piece then rolled forward and out of storage: a full suit of power armor. The Institute vitruvian symbol was emblazoned on it atop a coat of bright white paint. The suit was one they’d found after combing ruins of Logan Airport following The Brotherhood's defeat. From the records they’d discovered, The Brotherhood had apparently scavenged it themselves from a place called Adams Air Force Base in the D.C. area. Thomas had the Advanced Systems Division study and improve upon its original design. In her usual way, Dr. Orman had gone above and beyond that call, and it had quickly become an incredibly expensive piece of Institute technology. Thomas tossed Cait one of the neatly stacked and folded red and white armored jumpsuits stored in the compartment, “Suit up.” He said simply. She quickly stepped into it and zipped it up, feeling the ballistic fiber mesh tight against her skin. He pulled off his own white lab coat and hastily threw it to the floor. Afterwards, he grabbed one of the many racked Institute rifles and handed it to her, while Cait loaded up on energy cells, along with a cryo grenade or two. Thomas stepped around to the backside of the power armor, and twisted the release valve, opening the armor swiftly. He stepped inside, and the suit automatically closed around his body, the HUD appearing before him in his helmet gave an indication of the suits status, which was all green. A helpful voice sounded in his ear, [i]“Welcome Director.”[/i] He squeezed his fist to test the armor and stepped out of the station, and reached for a plasma pistol. Thomas hadn’t been an actual soldier in the war, the one that had started this whole mess. He’d served as a liaison to the US Army Robotics Division in Anchorage. He was only supposed to be there as part of the arrangement made between The University and the army: a graduate student fresh out and ready to make his mark on the world and help his country. Fighting had not at all been part of his job description, hell there wasn’t even [i]supposed[/i] to be a war back then, but he’d nevertheless received some basic training in the event of an emergency situation. The Chinese surprise assault on Anchorage had ensured that the notion that he’d be perfectly safe was so very misguided. There hadn’t been time to get the civilian personnel out, and he did what he had to do to survive. He’d even been lauded as a “war hero” back home, and years after he’d returned he’d still gotten requests to speak at veteran halls and charity events in the Boston area about the importance of “civilian duty” in times of war. In truth he’d been a coward, a coward who’d only fought to save his own skin and in the end, others died so that he could live. He’d learned an important lesson in Alaska however, one that had served him well when he’d finally emerged into the hell that his own generation had created. The importance of preparation when self-preservation was at stake. He had no idea what the situation outside was like if a Code Black had been initiated, but intended to be ready for whatever it was. The eyes of his helmet flashed a deep red as he turned to Cait, his voice now emanating from the helmet’s speech emitter, “Lets go.” [hr] Chaos was what awaited them outside. Thomas and Cait threaded the stream of panicked Institute personnel and their families who were scrambling away from the Sector 8B corridor and towards designated evacuation locations and secure zones. A number of Coursers in their armored uniforms were headed in the opposite direction alongside them, and Thomas took it as a good sign that at least the Coursers were operational and en-route to the situation. Even still, he feared the worst and he was on edge as he approached the ‘ground zero’ of the incident. It was a horror show. There was no other way to describe it. A female Gen-3 Synth had gone mad. She was tearing apart a Gen-1 maintenance Synth that had responded to the disturbance. Two human bodies lay strewn to the side, the mangled body of a Facilities worker and the bloodied body of a scientist. Thomas did not know the female worker personally, but he knew she’d only recently joined the division and was in-training to become a full fledged Facilities engineer: a future for her that would tragically never be realized. The scientist, however, he knew well. Dr. Harold Wagner. Dr. Wagner was one of the Robotics Division personnel. A member of his Thomas’s own division: a part of his team. Wagner was a bit of a loner, everyone knew it, and he'd always preferred the solitude of his work and the company of Synths to humans. He’d even requested a home assistant Synth for companionship and for help around the house. Wagner had taken to calling the Synth his “wife” which had earned him some strange looks from his fellow scientists, but everyone had assumed it was a harmless eccentricity. One that Robotics division personnel were seemingly becoming known for. Now he was dead, and lying in a pool of his own blood. It was an ignoble death that he really didn’t deserve, regardless of his oddities. Neither of them deserved this, and it shouldn't have happened. Thomas recalled that a similar situation had happened once before: Dr. Alan Binet’s own “wife” had taken to her role too well. The situation had ended poorly then as well, but the only consequence was Eve’s decommissioning. This was far worse. This wasn’t just a matter of a Synth re-prioritizing their programming: a problem that could be corrected. Something had snapped here. A line of Coursers was already forming as more of them arrived to the scene: rifles raised and pointed at the rogue Synth. Thomas saw that X6-88 was among them. “Fucking toasters,” Cait muttered as she raised her rifle, “I’ll send her to the scrap heap..” Thomas immediately raised an armored hand and pushed her rifle down. “Wait.” He said simply. “Orders Director?” X6 asked. None of the Coursers were budging an inch. They were waiting on his word to act. Thomas stepped forward, the heavy footfalls of the power armor reverberating around the area like thunderclaps. The Synth hissed and snarled like some kind of rabid animal and she spun around glaring at the Coursers. Her eyes then fell on Thomas as he came closer to her. He couldn’t shake the feeling of unease as she glared at him. There was something in the eyes he couldn’t explain, a tempestuous gaze that spoke equally to confusion, abject terror, and madness. “What is the unit’s designation?” “A3-18, sir.” “A3-18. Emergency Override. Director’s Authorization Code 03492 Zulu Arcus Tempest. End all active subroutines.”