Heya...Diamond City.

"You're looking pretty this morning, fog rolling in, but that should clear out before the afternoon."

"Just look at those birds chirpin', away outside the studio window,' Travis commented, looking through a small square 1x2 ft window on the trailer door. Three birds were spaced apart, clinging to the awning across the dirt alley from him.

Travis couldn't hear their caws through the insulation and walls to make up the sound booth in his trailer, but he saw their jaws working, and by watching them, the chirping and cawing noises appeared in his head.

Returning to Goodneighbor meant passing around the backside of Mass Fusion again, and skirting past pockets of ghouls that gathered and were left to roam the plazas and courtyards between skyscrapers in Downtown Boston. The noises that echoed between buildings often confused feral ghouls, misleading them into different directions than the original noise was coming from. Since the silence carried on for over two hours now, and into the mid-morning, they became stagnant, only responding to louder caws of birds, fierce gusts of wind, or the tell-tale sound of a gunshot.

Their sunken eyes rolling up to the heights of the tall buildings, or even further into the backs of their skulls, there were twenty feral ghouls between the U.S.S. Consitution and Goodneighbor. A dozen were underneath the overpass that Meathead lead the carriage team up and over, while two groups of four were clustered in the plazas near Mass Fusion and the backroad leading to Goodneighbor.

Seeing his chance, Nate sprinted to the Goodneighbor door and flung the gate's junk door behind him. Panting calmly, he made it without attracting attention. There were still plenty gathered in the streets from the Combat Zone to the Boston Common, feeding on the downed remains of super mutants and raiders alike.

The police power armor was standing unoccupied inside the gated community, outside the waist-high brick wall by Daisy's Discounts, but lacking a fusion core.

Piper was sitting on an old metal bench, waiting for Nate to arrive. She looked tired, up all night and not getting any meaningful restful sleep, a smile found its way to her face and she asked, "So, are we gonna talk about what all the commotion is about, or do I need to beg a little?" Calling out to him as he approached her. Crows were cawing in the morning air that rushed through the buildings, somewhere a cracked pane of glass finally lost it's battle with gravity, falling out and smashing into the ground. She stretched, then stood up, wiping the sleep from her eyes.

"I want to thank you for the support last night, without an extra person, this would've been much more difficult. As for the rescue, she's unconscious from the fall and shotgun wound."

Turning side to side, she took the compliment. "Awh, well, I hope she gets better. But, hey! Maybe you can repay the favor by letting me ask you a few questions?" She asked, cheeks rosy from the cool air, the kind words, and the cusp of a new story waiting to unfold in front of her.

"Sure."

"Actually, before I dive too deep, quick recap, what happened to all the Giddyup Buttercupspulling the carriage?"

"They're over at the Weatherby Investments Tower, the one with the Constitution crashed into it. They're tucked in there playing store, keeping an eye out for rustlers." Nate said.

"Nate, they're here," Piper said, pointing past Nate to two ponies that pressed against the front door gate into Goodneighbor and cantered right in.

One jabbed the other in the side, pointing her head towards Nate. The sound of their hooves clopping against the cobblestone street was followed up with two excited voices.

"Hi Nate, Hi Piper! It's us, Giddy and Gigi." Newer models might've been more difficult to tell the difference from one another, but the rust and sun-bleached paint, along with minor denting around the edges, made telling them apart that much easier. But, what set these ponies apart from others were the laser rifles slung over their back.

"Giddy, Gigi, good morning, what are you doing here?"

"We wanted to go exploring and see if there were any kids running around to play with...!" Gigi said, eyes quickly scanning the Old State House, "Did you know that this used to be the original state capitol building?" She said Piper rolled her eyes.

"Wonderful, more history buffs," Piper said.

"Yes, we do, actually," Nate said.

"Well, you might be hard outta luck, Buttercups. Goodneighbor isn't exactly a kid-friendly place." She said, sitting down on one knee. "Squolly Square." She whispered. "How's that for your memory banks, eh?" Piper asked.

Giddy and Gigi looked at each other, confirming what they already knew. Frowning in dissatisfaction, they 'hmmed' and then said, "You're right, come on, Gigi, we won't find any kids around here."

"Be sure to stay near the tower, and if anything tries to hurt or chase you, run up into the U.S.S. Constitution, and the robots will protect you."

"Are you just going to let them wander around?" Piper asked.

"I don't have much of any other plans for seven Giddyup Buttercups except try to keep them from breaking. Someone may want one, and I knew from the past they were pretty good companion bots. There was a place a little bit north of here...old folks home that Atomatoys needed to offload a whole bunch of money into to use as a tax write-off and promote it as philanthropy, while at the same time testing out a product that they could get feedback from the residents. Three years after they started it, there was a whole little wild-west themed senior-living community."

"And is that why you want to keep things from breaking?" Piper asked.

"No, I'll tell you why. I heard a noise like the sound of thunder, and I saw the sky break open, and the clouds part in a ring...and then a white light....then the sounds of ten million souls screaming out from the darkness. "

Piper jerked her head back, "Damn. Easy there, Teenage Angst. Save some poetry for open mic night."

Nate shook his head, trying to clear the image of the atomic bomb going off. "It's a small comfort knowing something from the past survived, even when what's left is buried deep under all this rubble. If it's Giddyup Buttercups, then I'll take 'em. To you, how big is the Commonwealth? How far does it stretch? From what I've heard, Salem is the farthest settlement in the North, Quincy to the South, Boston too...." Nate circled his left hand counterclockwise, and Piper jumped in.

"Fort Hagen, the military base to the west. No one is really out there except for raider gangs, but even they start to realize eventually when no caravans pass bye anymore. From Fort Hagen west...lot more countryside. It's different fighting out there than it is around cities. No cover out there, even with the trees, there's no place you can really retreat to. Out there it's like...a numbers game. If the other gang has more people than you do, chances are they're going to win. That's about how far the Commonwealth goes in your little box. "

Nate smiled, trying to infect Piper with an unshakeable, knowing, optimism. "Sounds like Mancala, the Chinese board game. It also sounds like things are a bit more feudal out there than it is in here."

"Piper." He said, grinning madly. "Do you really want some perspective?"

"Yes. I know you're a Vault Dweller, but I need more than that to know what your take is on the issues or major differences and changes that you see outside of the Vault. Diamond City is in desperate need of new insight from the outside. Can you describe your time on the inside?"

"Is that it?"

"Yep!"

"Piper, before we even talk about me, want to talk to you about your last issue, the synthetic truth."

"Yeah? What about it?"

"What prompted you to say Mc Donough is a synth?"

"The way he acted, he's been pushing for harsher and harsher restrictions on who's being allowed within Diamond City, and making sure that the lower level citizens never get a chance to purchase houses on the upper tiers."

"So what's he done that makes you think he was with the Institute?"

"He's been after me for years, always trying to shut me down. He's always trying to send the dumbest of guards to try and hassle me, or pay me off so I'll write something that puts him in a better light. It used to be bribes, but I kept saying no. Of course, I recorded it and put it out on paper he was trying to bribe me, but since it was never him personally, McDonough always denied it. They've smashed up my shop a few times, tossed furniture around, burnt my stacks of paper, one time I came home and found my computer completely wiped clean, and I lost everything except for a holotape of a few guards threatening to smash up my shop if I didn't stop writing about the synths or McDonough. I can't convince the public he's in on it without him saying he has no idea his men were in on it. He's distanced himself from the action which is making it a lot harder for me to pin him down."

"Okay, well, it sounds like he's a crook with legmen paid to keep the peace. Have you ever heard that phrase? Keep the peace?"

"Yeah. It's usually followed up with, by any means necessary."

"But nothing in the article actually said, 'This is why he's a synth. You only prose the two similar situations together, sure he may have looked like a cow with nothing on his mind, but people look all sorts of sloppy when they're eating."

"So you don't believe me either? You don't think he's a synth."

"I never said that Piper, I wanted to know what evidence you have on him."

"Any evidence I had, was destroyed by Diamond City Guards. I had a holo-tape of him talking to some people in code, about things moving places. I think he was talking about some people who ended up being kidnapped a few days later."

Nate nodded, his head bouncing back and forth. "Piper, how far would you go to learn the truth?"

"I'm willing to hit the road, and be by your side if that's what it takes to get the story." She said, slowly shaking her head, casting away any doubts in her own mind to commit.

"Well, our first stop is going to be the Boston Common Metro. We're looking for Nick Valentine right now, I talked with Ellie Perkins for just a minute, but she said he disappeared going after a woman kidnapped by Sonny Malone."

"Ellie's a good acquaintance of mine, she'll feed me little tidbits of information every once and a while. As for Sonny, he's boss of the Triggermen. Why do you need Nick Valentine?"

"I'm going to ask him to help track down the man who kidnapped my son. I need to get into Park Street Station, I know. Only, I don't want to go in there without a front man."

"A what man?"

"A front man, someone who can vouch for me so they don't immediately toss me out, or shoot me."

"So what's your plan for that?"

"Talk to Hancock. I earned a little bit of his respect for clearing out Swan from the Boston Common. Hopefully, that's enough to at least get there." Piper's head jerked back, standing up taller and leaning in towards Nate.

"That was you?" She asked, her hands darted inside her faded and ripped leather jacket, pulling out a pencil and a pad of yellowed notebook paper that used to be white. "This I gotta hear. What happened?"

"Nothing interesting. I took a Fat Man off a raider named Boomer outside of Boston and found mini-nukes along the way. We set up the Fat Man on top of the Mass Fusion tower and angled it just right so we could fire down onto the park. Three shots and he was done."

"That's insane. People have been trying to kill Swan for years."

"What were they doing? Throwing pillows at him?" Nate asked sarcastically.

"He's killed quite a few people over the years, at least two people every month for longer than I've been alive. I'm amazed you went after a Super Mutant Behemoth. I know a couple of merc parties tried going after him a few months ago, but...well...they didn't...do so well."

"Ask Hancock or his guard Fahrenheit, he'll vouch for me and say I was there. He was the one who actually pulled the trigger, I just provided the gun. Speak of the Devil." Nate pointed his left hand off towards the Old State House, Hancock was stepping out, adjusting his overcoat and taking a turn to his left. He paused for a moment, spotting Nate in his blue Vault suit. He raised his right pointer finger, pausing Fahrenheit and the other Goodneighbor guard behind him.

"Nate! What are you doing back here so soon?" He asked. Piper flicked her eyes over to Nate as they both walked towards each other and shook hands. "And look at those! Ponies! Haven't seen those things in at least a year." Hancock pointed towards the Giddyup Buttercups examining the broken down Police Power Armor, they heard the buzz word 'Pony' and turned to smile and wave.

"Business, I was just coming to see you. I'm looking for Nick Valentine, the last anyone I've talked to was that he's dealing with an issue with the Triggermen in Park Street Station. Do you have any way for me to meet with them?"

"They're all closed up after a group of their-" Hancock's left eye squinted, almost winking, but not quite, at Nate. Hancock noticed Piper, "-guy's up and vanished. They've been losing men, and now they're on the defense. Even their cronies hanging around the State House were called back. Guess they're not in the mood to talk right now."

"Well, I might as well ask, do you know if I'm going to get shot on site if I try going down there and asking about Nick myself?"

"You can ask, but they'll still probably shoot you just for asking. Sonny Malone has labs down in that Vault of his, and he's cooking up a storm of drugs. I'll tell you what. You kill him, and everything he has will be up for grabs. That is, for Goodneighbor anyway. I always try resolving any issues I have with the Triggermen, but they're going after my people."

Hancock's chin dropped down, so he was looking up at Nate. "Last night my men found three residents of Goodneighbor stabbed to death, twenty-one pricks apiece."

"What! Hancock, that's terrible, how are you going to respond?" Piper asked Hancock dropped his head over towards Piper.

He put one hand on Nate's shoulder and looked back to him. "Take care of this, will you?" Hancock asked. "Fucking Rats."

"Get me a gun that can get rid of them, and I'll handle it."

"Are you really going to go kill these men, Nate?" Piper asked, the first time calling him by his name.

"I'm okay with it, they charge too much for shitty drugs, and I know it's shitty because I'm the one who smokes most of it. Then they have the fucking audacity to kill innocent people already living at the bottom of the barrel, just cause a few of theirs up and died? No, that's bullshit, Piper. Nate, you take care of this, and I'll see what I can do about getting more men for you." Hancock said.

"What? What are you talking about?" Piper asked, looking from Nate to Hancock.

"Something we talked about earlier when this is all done and over with, I'll sit down with you and give you the whole story, Piper, but right now, I need the power armor."

"Well, shoot, I'm coming with." She said. "And the ghouls kinda tore out something important that makes the siren go off constantly when there's power connected to it, so I took the fusion core out."

Nate glanced over to the police power armor and scowled. "Kleo sells some armor that I can cover the expenses for you, I'll throw in some spare caps for whatever ammo or junk you need," Hancock said. Holding his right hand up, and waving two fingers towards him, Fahrenheit and a Goodneighbor guard approached them.

"Bud, go grab some caps, three hundred, these two are going a...errand for me and Piper, you're right, killing sounds like such a terrible word when you say it out loud." Hancock said, "Nate. Go un-alive them for me, would you? Also, Bud, go grab him the Colt."

\111/

The Colt wasn't a pony, it was the Colt LE901. Chambered to fire .308 rounds, it was suited for frontline infantry and close quarter battles. At just a hair over one meter long, and 9.5 pounds fully loaded with a 30 round magazine, the rifle was exceptionally powerful for taking down medium to large game.

Piper and Nate walked carefully down the steps to the Park Street metro station. The immobile escalator steps listed with each step and Nate wore straps of leather beneath his boots to muffle the noise.

"I'll tell you what, joining sonny's gang was the best thing I ever did." They both overheard. At the bottom of the steps was a door, when suddenly a man walked past holding a submachine gun, smoking a cigarette.

"I say Malone is weak. We catch the detective and what's he do with him? Lock 'em up! Like he ain't got the balls to do kill him." Nate looked to his left at Piper, sharing a knowing glance.

"Don't let the new girl hear that. She'll start swinging that bat of hers at your face until there ain't no face left."

Nate readied his combat knife, reaching the bottom of the stairs. Piper was ready with her laser pistol, there were two men beside the ticket kiosk, and a third man inside, with the fourth man who was smoking the cigarette walking towards the bathroom on the far left side of the station.

Nate direct Piper to the fourth man, while he hugged the wall to the right, picking up a brick on the floor.

Easing the door to the ticket kiosk open, the man inside turned and saw the door slowly swing open. He turned to check and see when Piper tailed the cigarette smoker into the bathroom. Firing twice from her laser pistol into the back of the man's head, he fell down dead.

Nate reached up and thrust the combat knife into the man's throat. Three stabs to the jugular, and the man was breathless.

Heaving a brick at one of the two men facing each other, Nate drew his snub nose and sprinted across the office, jumping over the counter, tackling the man still standing with his gun hand. Stabbing the man in the neck and main aorta, chest, and side of the head, the dazed man was swearing and getting back onto his feet, away from Nate when Piper fired over Nate's head at the Triggerman.

He shouted out, and Nate was on him instantly. Pointing the barrel into the soft goo of the man's eye, he pulled the trigger, blowing a hole right into the man's head.

The body dropped down onto the floor, and Piper crossed the station to Nate.

"What was that noise?" Came a shout from below.

"Nothin'! Just shootin' at a roach! Little cocksucker!" Nate shouted back.

There was silence for a moment, then they both heard. "Khay," In response.

\111/

Down two flights of stairs, they came to the tracks. Overturned vending machines with glass bashed in, pillars crumbling, and all the tiles on the wall were coming off the wall from the cracked plaster and moisture seeping in over the years. Nate counted men, and Nate pulled Piper in. "I'll toss three grenades, then we pick our shots."

Nate pulled three grenades off his bandoleer and poked his head up again, seeing a group of three people close together, and then two more people standing side by side. With his Colt LE901 at his side, Nate pulled the pin, let go of the clasp, counted to one, and then threw the first grenade at the group of three. Then the second grenade, and then the third.

Firing at the Triggermen before the first grenade even went off, they all turned their attention to him and were blind to the grenades as they went off at people's feet. In an explosive instant, four men were killed and they were all firing at Nate and Piper. Firing back, Piper with her Sten submachine gun and Nate with his Colt, the bullets raced across the station platforms. One man Nate saw he shot lost his hat, a second man shot by Piper took four steps, then fell over dead. Nate pulled off another grenade and heaved it at a third man on the next platform over. Piper was ready and gunned the man down as he tried to find new cover, and was shot in the legs, and the waist. Nate fired at the downed Triggerman, and he was dead.

The last two men were firing side by side, unrelenting with swapping out magazines while the other fired. This forced Nate and Piper to take cover. "Cover me." Piper raised her rifle above her head and fired blindly from cover, the bullets stopped and Nate ran low to the ground, throwing his back against a support column where he could look out and see the two men at the far end of the first platform.

Raising his rifle, he fired nine times into the first man, leaving only one Triggerman left.

The last man picked up his fallen comrades gun and hunkered down, reloading.

"You think you can fucking take us!? You fucking pieces of shit!? I'm gonna fucking kill you!"

Rising up, he was holding both submachine guns, one in each hand and firing from the hip. The torrent of bullets chewed apart the station and left bullet marks in everything. When both guns ran dry, he was forced back into cover as Nate fired back, the rifle making extremely loud bangs with every bullet fired in the metro station.

Piper dug through an empty vending machine and pulled out a glass bottle if her ears were ringing half as much as the last man shooting, she figured, then he might barely hear this.

Heaving the glass bottle down the platform, it shattered on to the right of the man. He stood up and fired, giving both Piper and Nate the opportunity to gun the last man down in a haze of bullets.

Piper dug her finger into her ear. "Your ears ringing, Blue?"

Nate replied, "Yeah."

"Stimpak?"

"Yeah."

\111/

The only way forward was down the metro tunnel. They could see men trying to find cover behind construction equipment, but their hats gave them away.

They were waiting anxiously, wondering when the gunfight would reach them. It was silent for ten minutes before one of them poked their heads up, "I'm gonna go check it out." The whisper echoed through the entire tunnel.

The first Triggerman crouched low, walking up the tunnel. Piper fired at him when he was free from cover, striking the man in the torso six times. More gunfire and bullets raced through the construction site, and Nate was moving into position with his shotgun Justice. Firing seven times, both men were shot dead underneath the streets of Boston. With the last three men outside the Vault 114 door, Piper and Nate both shared a moment to speak.

"Are all of the Vault doors this big and imposing?"

"You have seen one vault door, you have seen them all, I guess."

"Know how to get in? I doubt they'll just let us in, they probably won't even open the door if they know there's been any sort of firefight out here."

"But they don't, and I've got the key right here," Nate said, holding up his Pip-Boy for Piper to see. Walking up the metal stairs to the control panel, he pulled out the extension cord from his Pip-Boy and plugged it into the Pip-Boy remote link. The clear plastic cover over the Coupler Ignition popped open, and Nate's Pip-Boy gave him the all clear signal.

Lightly pounding his fist into the red button, the alarms for the vault door blared as reddish orange lights spun.

"Ready for round two?" Nate asked.

Piper nodded.

\111/

'Why the hell does that thing gotta be so loud?' The two Triggermen standing ready inside the vault looked at each other, one holding a baseball bat and wearing enough padding to stop a small missile, and the other, wearing grey slacks, belt, and button up with a brown fedora let his rifle hang loosely in his arms. They shared a look of confusion, wondering who it was opening the Vault door.

The large door mechanism swung down, drilling itself into the door, and pulled it backward. Rolling off to the side, the door was barely open a crack when a bullet raced in and struck the baseball bat carrying Triggerman in the chest.

The breath was ripped from his chest and he was knocked backward. Falling onto his knees, he scrambled for cover as Nate's Colt fired seven more times. The gun carrying Triggerman tried stopping the door opening process, but Piper fired a barrage of 9mm bullets from her Sten gun as Nate slipped in and took cover. Firing at their feet, Nate shot and crippled the first Triggerman and then was almost pummeled in the head by the second.

The bullets slammed into the second Triggerman, breaking bones and bruising everything that was covered from the force of each bullet, while stray shots that shot at the hand made the appendage completely useless and bloody.

After firing nine more .308 rounds from the Colt, the second Triggerman was dead.

Piper came in behind Nate, and the walkway extended from the inside of the vault over their heads to connect with the staircase outside of it.

"Where's the rest of them?" Piper asked Nate was silent, listening for any running footsteps, or any signs of people coming towards them.

"They must not be able to hear through the vault doors," Nate replied. "These hydraulic doors are thick, they're supposed to block out the radiation and contain fires or gasses. If you're standing on the other side of one of these doors, it probably sounds like someone's thumping around."

"Well, let's keep quiet. I like not having every single goon with a gun running at us all at once." Piper said, reloading her rifle.

Nate nodded, they switched open a door off to their right and followed along winding staircase down three floors, opening another, and hearing a set of voices talk from the next room over.

"So I don't get it...Why would they build a Vault inside of a subway station? Isn't that the opposite of airtight?" The first voice asked Nate and Piper took positions on both sides of the door, peering around.

The second man was a ghoul, his voice was much rougher. "Because they weren't planning on using it, you moron. We used to pull this same exact type of con all the time before the war."

Nate counted two men, and holding up two fingers, he crouched low and walked down the hallway loaded with crates marked Vault-Tec, along with other treasures pulled down from the surface above.

"Get a bunch of union boys to work some construction job that would go nowhere. Keep everybody on the payroll."

It was a long red hallway lined with pipes all along the walls, a causeway with a door at the far end. Nate pointed at himself, then to the man on the left, then to her, and finally the man on the right.

Counting down, three, two, one. They both fired at the same time, catching them both unaware. They both collapsed dead, un-moving onto the ground.

The next room they came into was a large cavern with excavators and catwalks leading in a big circle back down to a lower level of the vault. Nate readied Justice and spotted three more Triggermen by a panel ripped up from the floor with ladders leading down.

They killed the men, and Piper grabbed their 10mm pistols from them, taking the ammo for herself. A voice shouted up from down below.

"Come on and GET SOME you pieces of garbage! Come down here so we can waste yea!"

Nate raised his eyes towards Piper, pulling a grenade off his belt and flicking off the pin, he held it for a second, then let it drop down. It exploded before the grenade hit the ground, killing everything in a meter and a half radius instantly, and sending fragments of metal into everything else in the room below.

Climbing down, they entered lower levels of the vault. Of the two Vaults, Nate's been in, this one was much more poorly made and more heavily used. Panels were falling off the walls and missing from the floor. There was a sheen of rust coming down from every bolt hole, and everything looked shoddily maintained.

They came to the main atrium, a four-story open space was at the very top was a round window, the Overseers office with a Triggerman at the far end, talking through to the man on the other side.

\111/

"How's it going in there, Valentine? Are you getting hungry? You need a snack?" Dino asked he knew it was a joke, of course, the synth robot imprisoned inside the overseer's office didn't need to eat or sleep.

"It'll give you more time for Skinny to bump you off, Dino."

"Don't give me that crap, Valentine. You ain't got nothing, you know nothing, so you can't convince me with nothing."

"Really?" Nick Valentine shouted, "I seen him writing your name down in that black book of his."

Dino turned his head and peered at Valentine through the glass. "Lousy! Cheating Cardshark were the exact words of his. He drew three lines under your name."

"Three strikes? That's..."

Nate pressed the barrel of his ten gauge shotgun against Dino's forehead and pulled back the bolt. The loud clacking noise made Dino freeze up.

"Don't move a muscle," Nate ordered. Nick Valentine tried getting a better angle, looking through the window, but he couldn't see anything more than the stock of the Colt against Dino's skull.

"Now, have two options, die now, or die later. Open the door."

"Who the fuck are you?" Dino asked quietly.

"Vault-Tec. Calling." Nate said, Dino raised his hands and slowly turned his head and looked at Nate wearing his blue vault tech suit. Muttering 'what the fuck?' as he took a step back.

Walking to a small terminal by the office door, Dino punched in the password, looking over his shoulder he saw Piper aiming her Sten gun and a pistol at his backside.

"Hey there, Nick."

"Well, if it isn't my knights in shining armor."

The door opened, Nate directed Dino inside with the barrel of the Colt, and he obliged.

"So, why come all this way, risking life and limb for an old private-eye?" Nick asked Piper.

She pointed two fingers towards Nate, "He's the one with the questions, Nick, and your answers. But, he's a wily one. I keep trying to get some interview questions out of him and he's pretty tight-lipped." She teased.

Nick turned his attention to Nate, and they both looked at each other. Nate was cocking his head back like a rooster that realized something wasn't right. Deja-vu or an old memory coming back to the surface, Nate asked, "Nick Valentine?"

The detective wore his beige trench coat and floppy weathered fedora over his plastic head. Like a doll that's been dropped, shot at and beaten up, Nick's face showed how much he was a synth underneath the outside, as much as the metal jaw and skull showed he was inhuman on the inside. His glowing yellow eyes and black sclera showed to Nate that he wasn't human at all, but a synth. It looked like Nick was set on fire a few occasions, and the plastic was buckled and warped, but the voice made Nate stare like he's heard it before a dozen times.

"You're Nick," Nate said, Nick Valentine nodded, but didn't understand Nate's intention.

"No, you're Nick Valentine, from..." Scratching gunk out of his eye, the memory came to him. "You're Nick Valentine from the BADTFL. You were going after Eddie Winter."

The old detective didn't mean to scowl, but the words 'Eddie' and 'Winter' made Nick's face twist up in old rage. Like a band-aid that never got ripped off properly, and was still holding on like a stubborn painful hangnail.

"Yeah, that's me all right. God knows how you know that though. Never seen you before in my life."

"I looted the BADTFL evidence lockup and found a tape addressed to you... Old you...I'm assuming. I'll play it for you in a bit, but anyway, I'm looking for a kidnapper. He shot my wife and took my son, but this isn't the place to do it." Nate spoke to Nick, but the iron sights never leaving Dino.

"All right, behind the desk, and take a seat." Dino walked around the backside of the desk and sat on the ground. Nate looked at the little bobblehead on the desk and shoved it into his pocket.

"So you need a little angel of vengeance? Eh? Well, I don't usually go after blood money...but I guess it's been a while. I've been cooped up here for weeks. Turns out the runaway daughter I was after I came here to find wasn't kidnapped. She's Skinny's new flame, and she's got a mean streak from here to Diamond City."

"Is that what his name is? I've been calling him Sonny for the last day and a half or so." Nate replied.

"Sonny aka Skinny Malone. You're not wrong, bud. Anyway, you got troubles, and I'm glad to help. Let's blow this joint and then we'll talk."

"Do you have any reservations about your pal, Dino here?" Nate said, offering Nick a handgun.

"Nope."

"Good, cause I don't want this guy coming back to bite me in the ass." Nate fired, blowing Dino's head off. The blood splattered along the backside of the blank control monitors. "And I'm getting paid to clear out the Triggermen."

The rest of his body slunk downwards in the chair, and then the muscles locked up in rigormortis.

\111/

"Skinny's gang used to be small time until they moved into the Vault here. An empty Vault. Perfect hideout."

"I know what you mean, Nick," Nate replied. "I've got a spare one of those."

"Oh yeah? Where at?"

"Wouldn't be much of a secret if I went around telling everyone. Plus, I got some stuff buried in there I'd rather leave alone." Nate said.

"My detective sense is tingling, anything we should know about?" Nick asked.

"It's a graveyard, let's leave it at that."

Nick Valentine lead the way, leading them down the flights of stairs on a winding path to the bottom floor of the atrium, then they froze, hiding behind vending machines as two Triggermen came from where they needed to go, shouting for Dino.

"Dino! Stop Razzing the detective and let's go!"

"[How do you want to play this?]"

Nate leveled his combat rifle at their knees, firing at them after they walked by. Taking their ammo and pocketing their six-shooters, moved on through a section of lavatories and ascended more stairs leading into the vault dorms.

They moved quickly and quietly, coming up to the next Triggerman, they almost bumped right into him. Nate fired a shotgun round right into his stomach and then another one into his chest, then shoved him to the ground.

"Skinny and his gang are waiting for us somewhere...The name's ironic by the way. Don't let it fool you though, he's still dangerous. This next bit here looks familiar...it's where they strip the bodies and organize things they bring down." Nick pointed to the shelves around the next room they entered. Large metal racks and shelves were lined with stacks of clothes and shoes from dead bodies the Triggermen killed and looted. There were two shelves devoted to shoes, and even one with old Vault suits for 114 all folded neatly. Taking one for himself and shoving it into his bag, There was a rack of guns and baseball bats for the taking, Nate was only interested in the ammo though.

"All right, I think this is the way out. If they haven't already, they're posted up on the other side of this door." Nick said.

They took the time to reload, Nate shoving bullets into the clip to reload the Colt and Justice, Piper filled up on bullets, grateful for the large stash as well.

Nick Valentine grabbed a submachine gun and drum magazine, loading it in and pulling back the bolt, loading in the first round.

Holding it with his right hand, he looked back to Nate and Piper, "Let's go." he said, reaching for the door switch with his left hand. The hydraulic door slid up, and they were faced with two Triggermen, Darla, the missing daughter, and the last man's face was shrouded in a veil of freshly blown cigar smoke so thick, it took a moment to disperse away from the black fedora hat with white stitched lining, away from his round face, square jaw, and high cheekbones.

"You fuckin' punk."

\111/