Piper Wright threw yet another paper ball across the room, not caring that she missed the steel wastebasket that Blue kindly built for her. Piper's cabin was one of the very few that had a personal trashcan, since it used up so much steel to make them. Blue was adamant on giving Piper one, though, since she was starting to see the physical representation in Piper's creative block through the sea of wadded up paper balls she'd started filling her cabin with.
Piper groaned, sitting at her desk and rubbing her temples. She was out of paper again, and Blue's next errand day wasn't for another five days, when she could have the time to find more paper. Piper would have to go to Diamond City herself to find some paper, though she was sure that Nat was out by now, too. She groaned again, a headache building.
"Hey, Piper," MacCready's voice sounded through the thin steel walls of Piper's cabin. "You alright in there?"
Piper stood up to open the front door, which was next to her desk. "Hey, Mac." She greeted with less than her usual snide.
MacCready walked in the small building, carrying two green ammunition boxes. "One of these is yours," he said, "but I don't really feel like looking through to see which."
Piper smiled a bit at MacCready's teasing. She grabbed them both and put them on her desk. "I'm glad you're here, Mac." She unlatched one and began digging through it, determining which container contained the cases she needed for her weapons of choice.
"Whoa," MacCready said. "Something really is wrong if you're willing to say that without Nora making you." Piper stayed silent, but smiled again. "What's goin' on, Pipes?"
Piper sighed. She decided which box was hers, and set the other one on the ground. "I don't know, Mac. I haven't written a damn thing since Blue had me settle here. She decided I should go back to reporting for one of her towns but I just can't get anything out there! Nothing is happening, and if something is, it's already been reported by Mister Travis 'lonely' Miles." Piper sighed again. "Nobody just cares about the paper anymore, Mac."
Piper joined MacCready in her old, dirty bed and pouted. "I'm out of paper, anyway."
"Do you want to make a run to Diamond City?" MacCready suggested.
Piper thought for a second. It's been a while since she'd been anyway, she may as well go now. "Yeah, I guess I will." Piper concluded. "But I think I'm going to go alone."
MacCready nodded. "Yeah, sounds good. I'm pretty tired anyway. You would not believe the night I had…with Nora…" MacCready turned to grim at Piper, whose mouth was wide open with shock. She punched him in the arm.
"Mac you sly dog." She giggled. "I'm glad, though. Blue needs someone like you to take care of her." MacCready smiled and blushed. The two got up from the bed and said goodbyes. Piper then began making rounds around her cabin, double and triple checking to make sure she had everything she needed. While the trip was only a third of a day's walk, you really can never be sure in the Commonwealth.
Piper locked her cabin door and walked out the front of her town. As she walked across the settlement, she saw people doing their jobs, taking breaks, talking with each other, waving to Piper as she left. She couldn't really complain about living in a town like this, a town where no one was really significant and everybody did their jobs. She just wished something would happen, or else she believed she would die of writer's block. Her passion was about delivering the truth, and while the slow diminishment of the mutated carrots in the garden was truthful, it wasn't exactly life changing.
She decided, however, that this travel time was going to be a break for her, from her desk and from her nonexistent newspaper. She was going to go home and see Nat and then come back refreshed and ready to write.
Piper walked, not noticing the two stalkers at her heels, hiding at a distance behind dead shrubbery and piles of rubble. She had only walked five miles from Starlight when she was shot in the leg and collapsed on the worn road.
"Dammit!" She screamed, searching desperately for her pistol that she dropped on the ground. "Who the hell—AHH!"
The two raiders stood above Piper. "What the fuck d'you do that for?" One of them screamed.
The other frantically explained, "I don't know, man! She was looking for her pistol, and I didn't want anybody in that town to hear her screaming, so I knocked her out! I panicked!"
The first raider groaned and shook his head, staring at the unconscious journalist on the ground. His hair was in a Mohawk that it was too long for, so the hairstyle simply flopped back and forth as he moved his head. He brought his right hand to his temples, his left resting on his hip. Both hands were covered in spikes on the knuckles, matching the spiked pauldrons on his shoulders. "You better hope you didn't fuck her up, else Zodiac's gonna have our heads."
The second raider scratched his head with his leather-protected hand. His armor wasn't as intense as his friend's, since he preferred lighter armor and stealth. His hand rested on his buzzed head as he stared at the dame they were in charge of capturing, wondering how royally he'd messed up this time. "What do we do, Ace?"
Ace ignored him, inhaling several large hits of Jet. He breathed slowly, staring at the Commonwealth's afternoon sky and smiled after a minute. He looked back at his partner and scowled again. "You drag her body back to the base, what the hell else do you think we can do?" He breathed a few more hits of his Jet and threw the inhaler wherever. He started walking. "Let's go, Pan, before it gets to sunset."
Pan clumsily hauled Piper onto his shoulders and walked hastily to catch up with Ace. Their base was just on the border of the Boston Commonwealth and the rest of the American Wasteland. From where they'd seized the journalist, the walk back to their gang was merely a few hours, but in the wasteland heat and the deadweight of the girl on his back, Pan severely hindered the pair's speed. Ace did nothing to help his partner, just continually took hits of Jet and Buffout. The sun was just starting to set when the pair arrived at the camp.
Pan half placed, half threw Piper onto a designated platform Zodiac had in a corner just for Piper. Pan and Ace still didn't know the significance of this girl, and why their leader wanted her so badly, but they knew asking questions was pointless, and Ace never turned down a reward of copious amounts of Psycho.
"What if she doesn't wake up, man?" Pan asked nervously as his friend dug through his backpack for something.
"Then you guys are fucked, and the rest of us will try to pretend to miss you." A woman's voice said from the other side of the room. Pan looked at her and rolled his eyes as she put out her cigarette and stood up to walk to her fellow raiders. "In that case, we can only hope she doesn't wake up."
"Shut up, Poly, this isn't the time for your damn jokes."
Poly laughed. "Whoa, now, Pan, watch your language." She stood authoritatively and sobered up as her eyes laid on Piper. "What does Zodiac even want from this bitch, huh? Are the random stray wanderers he rapes and kills not enough to satisfy him?"
"You jealous he's done with you, Poly Pocket?" Ace teased.
Poly scowled at the junkie. "Zodiac may play with other women, but who does he come back to bed to, huh?"
Ace rolled his eyes, still digging in his backpack. "Dammit," he growled. "I'm outta Jet. Pan, if you cost me this job because of your little panic with the girl I'm going to kill you after Zodiac does."
Piper stirred then, causing all three raiders to instantly pay attention to her. Her head rolled, and she groaned in pain. Her eyes opened to see the three raiders staring at her, and she jumped, trying to run away as she screamed, but her efforts failed as the chains around her feet pulled her back. Similar chains held her wrists behind her back, making escape impossible.
"Let me go, you sons of-"
A gunshot silenced Piper, making her whimper and cringe as she anticipated pain. When nothing happened, she opened her eyes to the same three raiders, except the female had a pistol aimed at Piper. She slowly walked up to Piper and crouched down so that the journalist could almost taste her dirty, pink hair. "I don't know what Zodiac has planned for you," she whispered, "but know that you won't be here for long."
Ace scoffed. "Chill out, Poly Pocket. You think that every woman that comes here is here to replace you." He rolled his eyes. "I don't give a fuck why Zodiac wants her, I just want to know when he's gonna be here so I can get my stash and leave."
Piper watched each raider carefully, wondering who this person called Zodiac was, and why any raider wanted her to begin with. She heard footsteps then, slow and heavy footsteps, coming from somewhere down the dark hallway. A man emerged in the doorway, a tall and dark man wearing some serious combat armor. His skin matched the color of what Piper imagined pre-war coffee looked like, from what Blue told her, and he had a large, jagged pink scar that ran through his left eye, or eye socket, since there was no eye. He looked around the room menacingly, and smiled a sinister grin when his gaze reached Piper.
"You would not believe how long it has taken for me to find you." He said in a low, gravelly voice as he walked over to his captive. He chuckled as his hand traced her jawline, then lightly squeezed her small neck. Piper's heart raced and she held her breath, terrified of what was going to happen.
The man stood up from crouching in front of Piper. "Here," he said to the raider with the mohawk as he tossed him a small burlap bag. He grinned and left the room. The quiet one followed. The man looked around for anyone else, shocked to see the woman standing so close to him. "Poly," he addressed her, "what the hell are you doing here?"
Poly blushed slightly, but regained her confident, authoritative stance. "I came to aid you with this captive, darling."
The man looked angered at this. "You have no fucking business with this bitch."
Poly returned the anger with confusion and hurt. "You son of a bitch," she said, looking back and forth between the man and Piper. "You can't just replace me, treat me like one of the others. I was your first, goddammit!"
The man slapped Poly, hard enough for her to fall to the ground. "You son of a bitch!" she screamed again, earning her a kick in the head from the man's steal boot.
"Get the fuck out of here, Poly!" the man yelled at her. Poly glared at the man through a now blackened eye. She said nothing else as she left the room scowling. The man returned his attention to Piper, acting as if that scene didn't just happen.
"So…," Piper said, fearful of what was going to happen now that she was alone with him. "I guess you're Zodiac." She let out a tiny nervous laugh.
Zodiac glared at her, the grinned the same sinister grin as before. "And you…you are Piper Wright. And you are finally here in front of me after so long of hunting your ass down." Zodiac got close enough to Piper's face that she could smell his rotten breath. "I'm about to get my fucking revenge."
Piper held her breath, unsure of what the raider was talking about. "Re…revenge? On me?" Who had she pissed off now?
"Yes, Piper Wright. You cost me and my raiders what would have been the most successful raider camp in the Boston Commonwealth. Because of you, my people have had to hide out in old metro tunnels and makeshift forts in abandoned alleyways."
"Look," Piper could feel her heart racing, sure she was going to have a heart attack if this man didn't kill her before then, "you have the wrong person. I have no idea what you're talking about, so if you could please let me go—"
"LIES!" Zodiac screamed, startling Piper and making her whimper like a dog. "You had the whole town stage mutiny on that Mayburn, I lost the whole goddamn city because of you!"
"Mayburn? What the hell are you-?" Piper stopped. Captain Mayburn, the mayor of the city she and her sister lived in when they were younger. Mayburn, the man who killed her father, the one who agreed to let a band of raiders pillage the town they all lived in. "Wait, you worked for Mayburn?"
"That motherfucker worked for me," Zodiac corrected. "But you had him exiled, you led the mutiny on that mayor, you encouraged that fucking town to drive off my team. If it weren't for you, Piper Wright, the Boston Commonwealth would belong to Zodiac's raiders."
Piper held her breath, not knowing what to say next. She was going to die, she knew it. She knew it was going to happen eventually, especially with the kind of work she did for her newspaper. She found it poetic, honestly, that the reason she ever started writing would be the same reason she died. "Ok," she said finally, at peace with the fact that the last time she saw Nat she had grounded her. "Get your revenge. Go ahead and kill me." She closed her eyes and braced herself for the pain. She'd seen how raiders decorated their hideouts, and now she was wondering how painful the actual process was.
"Oh, Princess," Zodiac cooed. "I'm not going to kill you." Piper opened her eyes at these words, confused and terrified. "What do you take me for, some kind of lowly raider?" He walked around and grinned. "Nah, honey. That would be too easy, for me and for you. No, ma'am. You, my dear, are going to live for me from now on." Still grinning, he brought his face close to Piper's, feeling her shaky and scared breathing, loving how terrified she was and wondering how loud she could scream. "And I know the first thing I'm gonna have you do."