Plugging a Leak is an Institute side quest in Fallout 4.
Quick walkthrough[]
| Institute side quest: Plugging a Leak | |||||||||||||||||
| Speak to Doctor Ayo. | |||||||||||||||||
| Access lab terminal. | |||||||||||||||||
| Go to Binet residence and access terminal. | |||||||||||||||||
| Confront Liam's mother in maintenance room. | |||||||||||||||||
| Confront Liam. | |||||||||||||||||
| Report Liam. | Frame Ayo. | ||||||||||||||||
| Reward: 200 XP 1000 caps | Reward: 200 XP Liam's glasses | ||||||||||||||||
Detailed walkthrough[]
After the Directorate meeting is concluded during Mankind - Redefined, if the player character interacts with any unnamed synth or Institute scientist within the Institute, they will say that Doctor Justin Ayo is looking for them. Ayo can either be found in the Synth Retention Bureau or in his quarters in the Institute concourse (third floor, left-hand room between Advanced Systems and BioScience). Ayo shares his suspicions that someone within the Institute is helping synths escape, with his prime suspect being Doctor Alan Binet in the Robotics department.
Within the Robotics department, the required clue can be found on the right-hand terminal against the wall opposite the entrance, which indicates that there was suspicious activity on the terminal in the Binet residence. One can also optionally speak to Binet himself. Going to the residence in the concourse (third floor, right-hand room between Advanced Systems and Synth Retention Bureau), the player character will be met by Alan's son, Liam Binet, and the personal synth/"mother" of Liam, Eve. Liam will question about their reason coming to his home and he'll figure out that Ayo is trying to make his father look guilty, but he says he won't try to stop them. The terminal close to the balcony window has the evidence, which points to the SRB itself. Checking any of the terminals there will further indicate that unauthorized access was made from another terminal in a maintenance room.
Inside the maintenance room (the one in-between Robotics and SRB), they find Eve at the terminal behind several shelves. When approached, she draws a weapon and says that she cannot allow them to look at the terminal's contents while revealing that it was Liam helping the synths escape and she has been covering his tracks because she's developed a motherly attachment to him; unwilling to allow her "son" to be harmed, she threatens to kill the Sole Survivor to stop Ayo from finding out. At this point, two options are available: kill Eve or pass a red Charisma check to convince her they can be trusted not to tell Ayo, getting her to stand down.
Whatever the decision made with Eve, returning to the Binet residence to find Liam starts another confrontation. If Eve was killed, Liam will be upset; if she was spared, he will be astonished that she would be so protective of him. Once more, the player character is faced with two options: reporting Liam to Doctor Ayo or framing Doctor Ayo for the escaped synths, resulting in Alana Secord taking over as a more reasonable acting director of the SRB.
Option 1. Report Liam to Doctor Ayo[]
The player character can immediately return Doctor Ayo and inform him of Liam's actions. Ayo thanks them and gives 1,000 caps as reward, completing the quest. Afterward, Liam will be banished from the Institute and Alan and Eve will be angry and refuse to talk to the player character.
Option 2. Frame Doctor Ayo[]
To frame Justin Ayo, the player character needs to go to his quarters in the concourse and access his private terminal. They must disable the safeguards, then return to Liam, who is thankful and gifts Liam's glasses as a reward. Afterward, Ayo instead will be banished and Alana will take over as acting director.
Quest stages[]
Notes[]
- The quest is mutually-exclusive with the Railroad quest line, as obtaining this quest requires completing Mankind - Redefined which results in failing Road to Freedom or Tradecraft if these quests have not been completed beforehand. Conversely, successfully completing Tradecraft makes this quest unavailable even after Mankind - Redefined is completed.
- However, on PC one can manually start the quest if the Railroad has been destroyed. Simply open the console and enter the commands startquest instm02, then setstage 000a8257 400. This will give you the quest at its first stage.
- Choosing to frame Ayo results in failing Political Leanings, which can be issued before this quest and completed after, as the former requires a return to the surface and the latter can be completed in a relatively shorter run around the Institute.
- If killed, a synth component will not be found on Eve's corpse.
