Chapter Text
The number one rule of being a spy is this - don’t get caught. It seemed easy enough to follow, but leave it to Deacon to find a way to screw that up. That was the line of thinking Deacon was engaged in on loop as he hung from his ankles in a white-tiled prison cell guarded by synth enforcers.
Deacon had absolutely no idea how this happened. Decades of name changes, face swaps, disguises, nom de plumes … He’d even gotten confirmation from a courser that the Institute had no idea who he was - a friggin courser! It was unfair, especially since the Railroad was so goddamn close to taking out the Institute once and for all. Between the vault dweller they’d managed to wrangle onto their side being both the general of the Minutemen and the only person to have contacts inside the Institute, Deacon figured they had this in the bag. Now, either he was going to die before he got to see these creepy bastards buried in a mass grave, or the Institute was going to break him and ruin all the Railroad built over the last few years.
And Deacon was going to make damn sure it was the former that actually happened.
Besides not knowing how he fucked up bad enough to get caught, Deacon was also at a loss for how he’d literally ended up here. The last thing he remembered clearly was helping out with a ‘package delivery’ for Stockton - they were understaffed and the heat was on at Bunker Hill, so Deacon was helping with transport alongside Glory and Charmer. Next thing he knew they were ambushed by gen-2s; Glory took Charmer and the synth and ran to protect Charmer’s cover while Deacon stayed behind to clean up. By all means, it should have been an easy sweep, but somehow they got the jump on Deacon and now here he was - the living embodiment of The Hanged Man.
Deacon was really beginning to feel the rush of blood to his head by the time the creepy opaque glass doors slid open and an equally creepy old bald man joined him in the room. Deacon had to tuck his chin in just a bit to make out his visitor’s face, and oh boy - for all their scientific accomplishments, the Institute really hadn’t figured out fashion or face jobs yet, had they? The guy was wrinkled and had the kind of face they’d put in comics to let kids know that ‘this right here is the bad guy’. It managed to make Deacon’s fake smile just a bit more real as he fought off dispair.
Quickly, Deacon parsed through his options. He needed a good persona to start off with, one that would keep these idiots distracted long enough for Dez to realize he’d been compromised and move the gang somewhere else. He would save his more fleshed out characters for later though, for when the Institute had finally ‘broken’ him. It helped that for almost twenty years Deacon had been imagining what this exact moment would be like. Despite all the reasons to the contrary, Deacon felt in control - calm, rational. He could handle this.
“Hey there,” Deacon said, putting on his simplest voice and dumping all his unspent nerves into a wavering, pathetic tone. “I t-think there’s been some sort of mix up here, heh. I was just out takin’ a leek by the farm when these guys with laser guns come up and kidnap me. I get strung along for half a mile before your guys nabbed me and dragged me here… uh… wherever here is…” He trailed off into a nervous laugh that was a bit more real than fake.
“Don't play games with me, Railroad,” The scientist said, voice flat and uninterested. “It would be in your best interest to cooperate with us.”
“Railroad? Me?” Deacon said, putting all his acting abilities into looking confused. It would be easier if his sunglasses weren’t still clinging to his face and blocking off his eyes, but honestly, Deacon appreciated the little barrier between him and what was probably about to be his interrogator. “Nah, I hate synths. Robots are nothin' but trouble.”
“I see,” The scientist sighed and made a motion to the synths behind him. “Restrain him and follow me.”
“Where are we going?” Deacon asked as the clamps around his ankles came undone and he dropped headfirst onto the pristine tiles beneath him with a short “oof.” He was then hauled up by the pair of synth enforcers by his pits and half-walked-half-dragged from the room, head throbbing as the blood rushed back down to his legs in a painful tingle. They kept a two-foot distance from the scientist at all times as the small procession marched down the immaculate halls.
“Your attempts to plead ignorance are neither cute nor effective,” The man continued, glancing down at a clipboard Deacon hadn’t seen him pick up. “We know exactly who you are, Deacon.” Deacon felt a jump in his soul. Shit, they had his codename, that wasn't good. Could be that there'd been some sort of leak from the inside. Either that or the courser that Charmer’s been hanging around has gotten just a bit too observant. Deacon told her keeping him around was a bad idea, but she never listened. Good news was, Deacon had one hell of a poker face, and he was at least able to keep his emotions off his face while he panicked. The slowly worsening migraine wasn’t helping his acting abilities though, and he had to grit his teeth against the spots in his vision that came from spending over an hour upside-down
“We’ve known about you for quite some time, actually, though it was only recently that we were able to put a name to your many faces,” The scientist said, continuing his ramble. “You’ve caused us a lot of problems here at the SRB, especially since the disappearance of my predecessor. I don’t suppose we can thank you for that little hiccup as well, hm?”
“I have no idea what you’re talkin’ about, man,” Deacon said, and this time it was the truth. He knew damn well about the Synth Retention Bureau - the black spot of the Institute where ‘malfunctioning’ synths went to be ‘repaired’ - but he didn’t know anything about who this guy was or who proceeded him, though by the way he was talking Deacon was beginning to suspect this guy ran the show there. Yikes.
“Of course you don’t,” The guy-who-might-be-director-of-the-SRB said with a huff.
“It’s the honest truth, swear on the Atom,” Deacon said, and if he could he would raise his right hand, but the arm attached to it was currently in a vice grip by a particularly murderous bot. Man, if Glory was right about these guys having secret sentience he felt real bad for them - needing to put up with this jackass all day should constitute as a war crime.
“We’ll see about that, won’t we,” Mr. Director said, guiding the synths and Deacon into an elevator where they descended even further into the institute. The first waves of agony in his brain receded, and his vision was slowly clearing up - though the prickles in his legs seemed to be in it for the long haul. Deacon kept his eyes peeled; as far as he knew, he was the very first Railroad agent to ever enter the Institute alive - though whether he was also the first to make it out alive was yet to be seen, and unlikely at that. Either way, it couldn’t hurt to gather as much information as he could while he was here.
Unfortunately, the scenery wasn’t cooperating with that plan of his, because despite the tube being made of glass, all there was for Deacon to see was concrete and steel.
Silence stretched between them, ticking off seconds like the world's slowest time bomb. Deacon was becoming more and more aware of just how fucked his situation was. He could feel his heart rate threatening to spike and he knew he needed to put a cap on that now before they started in earnest and his unconscious responses gave him away. Breathe - slow and calm, like you’re an average settler being waltzed through a strange new place.
Deacon had half a mind to break up the silence with a joke or a moronic plea to be let go on the grounds of a bitch of an ache forming in his shoulders, but before he could formulate the words they arrived at their destination.
The elevator stopped in the center of a room painted white - shocker. There were a set of terminals and what looked to be a memory lounger in front of him, except instead of comfy red leather chairs the device was outfitted with a sleek metal dentist’s chair with straps at the ankles and wrists.
Deacon jerked in a half-aborted panicked struggle. Not entirely out of character for his persona, he reasoned, but Deacon quickly started speaking to do damage control.
“H-hey, wait a minute here,” He said, resisting the pull of his synth guards for the first time. He planted his feet and leaned back, which only resulted in him being lifted by the impossibly strong androids and carried over to the chair. “What is that thing? Th-there’s been some kinda mistake.”
“There has been no mistake, I assure you,” The maybe director said as he placed a clipboard down on the table next to one of the terminals. “Alana, would you send a notice to Facilities that we are going to be using double our usual power allocation.” He said, addressing someone in the room that Deacon couldn’t see as he was wrestled into the nightmare chair. “I believe this one is going to insist on being stubborn.”
“I think Doctor Filmore would have preferred a little more warning, don’t you?” A snippy female voice came from behind him. That must be Alana. Deacon tried to turn his head around to find her but found his neck clamped down with restraints around the same time his arms and legs were bound.
“She’s lucky to be getting any warning at all, and you can tell her I said that!” The almost-certainly-director-of-SRB snapped. Deacon heard a long sigh come from the woman he couldn’t see; at least he wasn’t the only one who thought this guy was a total douche, though he doubted he’d find much solidarity with an Institute scientist. Still, an idea to store for later. “As soon as you’re done I want you to prep a vial of Chem 842 from the freezer.”
“Did you get approval from BioSciences?” Alana asked over the tapping of her fingers on a keyboard.
“Why should I?” He returned. “They’ll thank me when we manage to put a stop to their test subjects leaving mid-trial.”
The conversation made Deacon sick. How could these bastards stand to live with themselves? Treating sentient, living creatures as little more than test subjects and servants. Deacon had heard the stories dozens of times from synths who’d managed to make it out, but seeing the way things operated up close like this made him want to punch something.
Breathe. He told himself. In and out. It’s okay to panic a little - he would be more suspicious if you didn’t - just try not to give away how much you want to break that stupid clipboard over his ugly bald head.
Deacon found himself approached by the director again, and through his sunglasses, he tried to make eye contact as a scared, helpless villager who’d been abducted by the commonwealth’s nightmare.
“S-seriously, guys, I think you have me mistaken for someone else,” Deacon said.
“Oh, I believe we have the right man alright,” The director pulled down the tangling head-shaped device that Deacon was almost certain was the same tech Dr. Amari used to mess with memories. He detached one of the electrodes and licked his thumb before running over the suction cup there, then stuck it to Deacon’s temple. Ew. “It’s all a matter of when we get him to come out and talk. Or, rather, remember.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, man!” Deacon said. He put on a bit of a show, thrashing in his restraints and trying to shake off the wires being attached to him. “What are you even doing to me!?”
“Nothing, yet,” The man assured him. With everything attached he stepped away and returned to his terminal to enter in a handful of commands to the machine. “This does not have to be a painful experience for you.” He said. “This machine is designed to scan your brain and extract memories. I’m going to ask you to recall a series of events, and if you cooperate that will be all we need.” Deacon could hear his own heartbeat as he struggled to maintain outward calm. “If by some miracle you are telling the truth and you are not the man we are looking for, then that will be revealed shortly.”
Without any warning, Deacon felt a pinch in his shoulder. He gasped, jumping from the chair as much as the restraints would allow. He squirmed his head to the side to see the other scientist - his presumed Alana - with a syringe in hand which was attached to a needle that was caught painfully in his muscles.
“Wait- what was that?” Deacon said, genuine concern entering his voice, though in as controlled a manner as he could manage considering the circumstances.
“A precaution,” The director answered cryptically, “and some… incentive for you to be more truthful than your usual demeanor allows.”
Well, wasn’t that just the kind of development today needed? Deacon continued his performance of panic and struggle to hide his own real, genuine racing thoughts. Dr. Amari once told him that it was impossible to pull memories from an unwilling subject; not only was it nearly impossible to locate precisely what you were looking for without the cooperation of the subject, there was no telling if those memories were real or fabrication. That was good news for him, but she didn’t say anything about how the presence of chems might change things.
Deacon closed his eyes and leaned back in the chair, energy running low now that he could feel the fire of the mystery chem running through him. The veins on his temple burned and he had to grit his teeth not to yell, then he relaxed his jaw and let himself scream a little, just to stay in character. Never mind that it was cathartic as all hell.
“Now,” The director said from behind his terminal when Deacon had paused his senseless screaming to catch his breath. “I want you to recall one of your first memories. Pick one that is very clear to you.”
Looks like they were starting. Not the question that Deacon was expecting, but he figured they were probably testing him so they could get a baseline for real vs. made-up memories. Damn. Deacon needed a minute to debate whether he should lie on this one or not.
“I… uh… I don’t really got any clear memories from when I was a kid,” Deacon said quickly, trying to think fast through the sluggish lava soaking into his brain. “Got kicked real bad by a Brahmin in my teens, wiped out most of my childhood. Had to relearn to walk and everything-”
“I don’t want to hear you remember,” The director said impatiently. “I want you to recall it. Just focus on something you can remember. The… 'Brahmin' incident will suffice.”
Whelp, looks like the decision was made for me then, Deacon thought. Lying it is.
Deacon had been kicked by a Brahmin once. It was pretty much a universal experience in the Commonwealth with how common the things were. It hadn’t been in the head though, and Deacon had pretty much brushed it off with a bruise on his stomach and ego. He focused on that memory to build a fake one - the look of the shoe coming up in a split second, the sharp warnings to “Look Out!!!.” The ‘Oh shit I was just kicked by a brahmin ’ feeling. Add to it a few random teenagers, a beer in his hand, and a splitting headache that he could draw on his experience with head injuries to conjure. In the end, Deacon was replaying a scene in his mind so perfectly it might as well have happened to him.
“I found the cognitive base point,” Alana said. There was tapping on the keyboard behind him. “There’s only 65% lucidity, and an 86% spike in prefrontal activity.”
“Does that mean the memory has been tampered with?” The director asked.
“I can’t say for sure,” Alana replied, “it’s possible that the activity is subconscious. If he is telling the truth about a head injury his mind could be compensating for lack of consistency.”
“A ‘yes’ or ‘no’ would suffice, Dr. Secord,” the director snapped.
“I told you, we’re going to need several tests to get a reliable base point,” She snapped right back. Yeesh, talk about office drama. Good to know even secret underground societies have infighting between colleagues. In another life Carrington might have fit in well with the culture here.
Meanwhile, the pounding in Deacon’s head only grew worse and the feeling was spreading down his spine. It was like someone had him hooked up to a spinal tap of battery acid. Deacon had no idea what the stuff was, but it definitely wasn’t helping him think clearly enough to play mind games, which was probably the point.
“Alright, let's try another memory,” The asshole behind a monitor said. “Can you recall your mother’s face?”
“I’m… an orphan,” Deacon said, voice strangled by the fire eating his entire nervous system for breakfast.
“Who raised you?” The man asked.
“Lilly J,” Deacon said. “Sweet old lady - lived to a-hundred-and-two. Used to grow tatos and used the rotten ones to throw at crows n’ scare them off-”
“Stop talking,” The man said sharply. “Just her face. Try to recall her face.”
Deacon closed his eyes and tried to recall every single old lady he’d ever met and cobble them together into one mess of a woman. The image was wobbly in his mind, and hard to hold onto while fighting off agony.
“Lucidity fluctuating,” Came the woman’s voice again. “Unable to verify an image. He’s almost certainly making something up right now.”
“Come on, that’s not fair!” Deacon shouted. “She has been dead since I was eight, how am I supposed to remember what she looked like clearly?”
“I thought that brahmin kick wiped out your childhood memories, hm?” The director said, voice smug. Shit. That was a fuck up on Deacon’s end, wasn’t it? Normally he’d be quick to salvage his lie, but he couldn’t think clearly enough to speak. So he said their dumbly while the pair of sadistic scientists jotted down another point and the questions moved on.
“Try to recall your first sexual experience,” The scientist said. Deacon shouldn’t have been as surprised as he was by the question. He was being tortured for information, of course they weren’t going to limit their questions by the ‘first date’ lines. The most immature part of him wanted to say ‘your mother’, and another part encouraged him to do it. Instead, he said,
“Can’t, I’m a virgin.”
“I don’t believe you,” the director said without hesitation.
“Why? You really think I'm that much of a stud? I'm flattered,” Deacon put on a smile strained by discomfort.
“Doctor Secord, retrieve another dose,” The director addressed his partner.
“Sir, I would advise that we hold off until-” Alana began, but she was cut off before she could finish.
“If our subject does not want to cooperate then we will have to find some incentive to coax truthful recollections out of him,” The director walked into Deacon’s line of sight, hands behind his back. “Mr. Deacon, what do you hope to accomplish by your belligerence? Do you believe that you will be able to fool us? Or maybe you are hoping to waste our valuable time?” Honestly both, but Deacon kept his mouth just as he heard the sound of footsteps behind him and felt a new syringe poke into his arm. He hissed, eyes closing, and his chin was grasped by the gloved hands of the Institute scientist before him. “No matter how long it takes, we will get our answers from you. I have nothing to do these days, seeing how smoothly our coursers have been operating under our new director, so I have all the time in the world to dedicate to getting you to talk .”
New director? Deacon hadn’t heard anything about a change in leadership at the Institute. Nora hadn't told him - did she not trust him? Or had Dez ordered her to keep quiet about that? Somehow, the idea that the Railroad had kept something from him stung, no matter how hypocritical that was.
Didn’t matter now. The fire redoubled in his veins and Deacon hissed under the pressure of the fingers around his jaw. He was released and the director of the SRB walked back behind his console. “Now, let’s try this again.” The man spoke. “I want you to think of a dog. Any dog, so long as it’s one you can personally recall.”
“Gahk-” Deacon opened his mouth to speak but found that he’d been reduced to grunts and moans and his neck lit with waves of heated pain circulating through him. He shut his mouth quickly and whined, forcing himself to obey the command if only to get this over with as fast as possible.
Except it wasn’t going to be over with, not until Deacon broke or dropped dead. If he was lucky, they’d overdose him by mistake and his head would just collapse on him, but it wasn’t likely.
Deacon had been prepared to die for his cause the day they took his Barbara away from him. Over the years his rage and determination had faded, sure, but his commitment was still strong. The Railroad would not fall because of him - he would rather die. Deacon had known he might be killed in the line of duty, and that would be the lucky case when faced with the alternative of being caught. Now the time had come to put his devotion to the test. All those times he said he’d never break, never let Railroad secrets get into opposition hands, never sell out his friends, not for his life or comfort - time to pony up. He truly believed that he would never, ever sell out his cause.
He needed to believe in himself and stray strong, but as the pain consumed him top to bottom, he feared that this time he might have lied to himself.