Piper and the general together descended into the Park Street subway station,the station where Ellie Perkins had told them Nick was being held. The general bent low to the floor and Piper did likewise. He led her to the left side of the first doorway; they could hear a conversation between two men on the other side. Two triggermen. "I'm tellin' ya, join' Skinny Malone's crew was the best decision we ever made. Look at this place!"
"I still say Malone's weak, caught that detective snooping around and what does he do? Locks him up. Like he ain't got the balls to just kill him."
"Well don't let his new girl hear that, she'll start swingin' that bat of hers in yur face, until there ain't no face left."
The general rounded the corner with his combat rifle raised. Though he intended to approach silently, the swishing of his long jacket brought him to the triggerman's attention. He spoke, turning to face the general.
"Wait. The hell?" The general growled at him as the second triggerman fired, sending his bullets to the right of the general and into the tiled wall. Seeing the general bolt to a supporting pillar to the left to avoid the gunfire, Piper rushed through the doorway and took cover behind a match to the right. The general noticed her coordination. She fired her 10mm pistol into one of the triggermen's heads. He had expected the reporter to be uncoordinated, and possibly a liability, but she was proving competent- for now. The general sprayed the second triggerman and he fell in the space of the doorway, which led deeper into the station. From their left, a voice cried out.
"They're here for the detective! Ice em'!" Piper swiftly moved to the next pillar in front of her, but one of the newly arrived triggermen clipped her shoulder with a bullet from his submachine gun. The general ran into the middle of the room, slaughtering this triggerman. Another triggerman charged the general with nothing but his fists, but the general caught him in the jaw with the stock of his rifle brutally, causing his neck to twist and break. The ragdoll slumped to the floor.
Piper stepped out from behind the pillar, taking a look at her shoulder. The injury was far from serious.
"I wonder if this is normal for other reporters." The general began harvesting the corpses for ammunition. Piper followed suit. "Ours now." The duo journeyed deeper into the station, deeper underground. The general crept along the floor again, with Piper behind, and they came upon the next location.
"Huh. Wait a minute…" The general peeked around the corner and shot the triggerman in the back with a cluster of ammunition. The other triggermen were unsure of where the shots came from. The general retreated back up the stairs, killing another who was farther off and alerting the triggermen to his location, who now aimed their sights at the only entrance to the room. This room was filled with overturned objects serving as cover. This was somewhat advantageous to the triggermen, but among the maze the general had no equal. He expertly maneuvered between the objects, eliminating triggerman after triggerman. Bullets bounced off the cover to his right and to his left, but none of his assailants took sight of him. With little overall effort, the general arrived at the nearer of the two tracks running through the station.
Piper proved less adept at this. After moving up behind the general and firing over to the other side of the tracks, she foolishly stood up while the general fired on more triggermen who were further down the line. He eliminated these triggermen by blind firing his rifle across the tunnel opening, although one had attempted to duck. Piper, on the other hand, shot only one triggerman before a bullet tore through her left breast.
Piper's eyes glazed over as she crashed into the wall of cover. The general whipped out his pipe pistol, sending the triggerman's brains forth from the back of his skull. He knelt down and turned back to Piper, reaching inside his jacket. Despite remembering he was out, his hand latched onto a stimpak. He administered the injection quickly. Piper mumbled as her wound healed and the world came back into focus. "Glad I bought you an extra." After making a complete and rapid recovery she picked herself up, following the silent general along the tracks.
The next area was significantly different. It well lit by construction equipment, with a dirt floor and a vault door embedded in the opposite wall. Ellie had told them Nick was being held inside. They were no longer in the station. The general shot the middle triggerman in the spine with a single bullet before the other two triggermen opened fire. Piper and the general ran out, firing back. When they had finished, they approached the door to the vault, where the general took a pip-boy from his jacket and plugged it into the panel to the right of the entrance. He had taken the portable computer off the dead vault dweller in Concord, but Piper thought he might've been a vault dweller once. She wondered if she might get away with calling him "Blue," a reference to the blue jumpsuits they were usually still wearing when they finally left the vault. She guessed not. The general slammed his hand on the panel's button, and the door opened, rolling to the left. A bridge extended to welcome them inside.
"Why's that door gotta be so loud? Hello… That you Skinny? Darla?" The general moved up the stairs half crouched with his gun raised.
"Neither." The triggerman's blood splashed on the wall behind him. Piper commented offhand.
"Good riddance."
"Leavin' so soon? Was just startin' too admire ya." Piper and the general once again moved low and cautiously, heading towards the voice. Rounding the corner, they found an empty connecting hallway. The general turned to the containers standing against the wall and searched through them for anything of value, letting his guard down momentarily. A triggerman wielding a baseball bat rushed into the hall, startling them both. Piper jumped back a step and fired three quick rounds, which struck him in the chest. He still managed to reach the general, but fell dead before harming him. The general gave Piper a small look of appreciation before re-steeling himself. She figured it was the best she could expect from him.
Once more, the pair journeyed down a flight of steps cautiously, and once more they heard a voice at the bottom.
"So, I got a question. Why the hell would anyone build a vault out of a subway station? This place is like… the opposite of air-tight." The room ahead appeared empty; the voice must have come from the open left room. The duo crept toward it, listening as another voice responded.
"Because they weren't planning to use it, you moron. We used to pull this kind of con all the time back before the war." This second voice must belong to a ghoul. "Get a bunch of union boys to work some construction job that would go nowhere. Keep everyone on payroll." The general passed though the doorway and, seeing two triggermen, motioned for Piper to follow. He pointed at her and then at the triggerman on the left before making a gun with his hand. Piper understood. They moved in perfect unison, each drawing out their pistols and firing a single bullet into the back of their target's head. They watched as both bodies fell with the same unison Piper and the general had executed them with. Piper felt something, uncertain of what to call it. She looked to the general to see if he had felt it too, but he was already moving on. She desperately wanted to elicit a response.
"Really holding your own down here."
"I always do." Piper was momentarily stunned. She had not expected a response, though she had wanted one, and wondered if these adventures could be more than a one-shot occurrence. If only she could find some crack in his demeanor, she might find some substance which would make the man intriguing.
The general opened the door to the next room, revealing a large network of triggermen, stairs, and walkways- all leading deeper underground. This time the general commented on his own. "Not much cover up ahead." He checked his rifle, making sure it had a full clip. "Grab a submachine gun from the triggerman. This could be difficult without it." Piper did as she was told while the general rushed into the room, opening fire on the first triggerman he saw. Piper followed.
The general leapt off the railing, landed on a triggerman, withdrew his pipe pistol, and fired into the man's face as Piper decimated a second triggerman who was knocked down behind the general. The general killed two more triggermen on the next walkway below before jumping down another level. Soon they had cleared the triggermen, coming to the exit at the base of the network.
The final room had many decks, yet only one triggerman. The general had grown more talkative. "Wait here. Shoot him if he notices me- but only if he notices me." Piper nodded. The general holstered his pipe pistol and crept along the left side of the room, listening as the triggerman talked.
"How ya doin' in there, Valentine? Feelin' hungry? Want a snack?" A voice that Piper recognized shouted a response from inside the locked room the triggerman faced. The voice was Nick's.
"Keep talkin', meathead, it'll give Skinny Malone more time to think about how he's gonna bump you off!"
"Don't give me that crap, Valentine. You know nothin', you got nothin'" Piper watched the general as he reached the stairs, a little more than halfway to the "meathead."
"Really? I saw him writin' your name down in that 'black book' of his. 'Lousy, cheating card-shark' I think were his exact words." Nick stressed the word exact. "Then he struck it across three times!" Sensing the conversation might be drawing to a close, the general moved faster toward the triggerman. Piper placed her finger upon the submachine gun's trigger, anxious he might be spotted if the triggerman turned to leave. The triggerman replied nervously.
"Three strikes? In the 'black book?' But I never… oh no. I've gotta smooth this over- fast." He turned, almost running into the general. The general lunged at him. Piper opened fire on both of them accidentally. The general came in between the bullets and the triggerman. He wrapped his arms and hands about the triggerman's head, snapping the neck as bullets struck him in the back.
Piper's had closed her eyes, horrified to imagine the bullets ripping through his body, reducing the legend to a corpse upon the cold metal floor. When the imagines reached the pinnacle of their horror, she opened her eyes, seeking relief, yet she saw the general still standing, uninjured, the bullets having penetrated his dark brown trench coat, but not the grey beneath. Piper was bewildered at his survival. From the stories her father told her long ago, she shouldn't have been, but she knew he couldn't be the original, and nobody in the Commonwealth had armor like that.
The general groaned. The material stopped the bullets, but they still caused him pain. He shrugged it off. Piper didn't know what to say, and so, said nothing. She threw down the submachine gun and came alongside him. Nick yelled to the general, unable to see Piper through the window.
"Hey you! I don't know who you are, but we got three minutes before they realize muscles- for brains ain't coming back! Get this door open!" The general peered through the thick, partly shattered glass window at the man inside, if what you could call the person he saw a man. "You gotta hack this terminal to open up this door!" The general opened the terminal on his right and chose the option "[Override Door Controls]." The door slid up into the ceiling. "Ah, my knight-in-shining armor, or should I say 'dark knight?' Question is, why does he come all way, risk life and limb, for an old private eye?"
"What the hell are you?"
"Told you. I'm a detective. Look, I know the skin and the metal parts ain't comforting, but it's not important right now. The only thing that matters is why you went to all this trouble to cut me loose." Nick Valentine's glowing yellow eyes and his throat which looked like it had once been torn out deeply disturbed the general. Piper stepped around the corner.
"Hey Nicky, Ellie sent us."
"She did? I should give her a raise. I've been cooped up in here for weeks. Turns out the runaway daughter I came here to find wasn't kidnapped. She's Skinny Malone's new flame, and she's got a mean streak. But now ain't the time to talk. Let's blow this joint." Nick ran out of the room, talking history as he ran. "Malone's crew used to be small time, muscled out of the old neighborhood by bigger players. Until they found this place. Don't know what happened to the previous owners, but they're not exactly around to charge rent. An empty vault. Perfect hideout."
Nick opened a new door, one to the right of the entrance the general had come through. The hallway behind it was spotted with shadows and dim light. The detective led them down a set of stairs, kneeling when he got to the base. "Hold up. I hear some of them coming." Nick moved to the left of the doorway, looking through another doorway to see the triggermen he had heard. "There they are, how do you wanna play this?"
The general didn't answer, but crept into the next room. He put his hand on a Nuka-Cola machine. From it came the faint, heavenly blue glow of a Nuka- Cola Quantum. The general quietly opened the machine and slid the bottle into his jacket. He peered out of the room to access the situation. There were three, maybe four, triggermen to be killed or snuck past. Seeing no way around them, the general opened fire on the first triggerman, killing him before he could respond. Seeing his fellow goon die, another shouted.
"There! Waste 'em!" The remaining triggermen opened fire on the doorway as the general ducked behind it. Bullets leapt off the metal framing, as well as off the general's armor, like crickets chased from fields of hay. Piper and Nick fired back. Another triggerman fell before Nick rushed out shouting.
"You're in for it now!" The general's combat rifle chewed through a third triggerman like a rabid dog. Only one remained, hiding behind some far-off cover. He was no match for Nick's pipe pistol and careful aim. The detective began running again, out of the vault this time. He commented on the general's approach. "Hard and loud, huh? Well, it gets the job done. Too bad for whoever cleans up the floors…"
Piper followed with the general down a long, wide hallway before coming to a locked door where Nick was bending over to work. "This door's on the fritz, let me see if I can get it open…" Nick fiddled with the panel next to it, speaking under his breath. "Almost got it… there we are! Hell of a lot easier to do when the lock isn't on the other side…" The door opened with the sound of pneumatics. There were stairs on the other side, winding left and right, ascending towards the surface. Nick reached the top of the stairs, carelessly running into the next room with the general close behind.
"Aaaayyyaarrrrgghh!" A triggerman swung his bat at Nick as the synth passed through the doorway, but Nick managed to duck the blow. Surprised, the general raised his rifle and filled the attacker's stomach with lead. Nick readied his own pistol, commenting as he realized he was too late.
"Cleaned house." The three kept moving, passing through the door in the left wall. A single triggerman was inside the newly discovered room, his gun already drawn.
"Time for you to take the fall." The general pulled his gun's trigger, but only one bullet left it, and one bullet was not enough. The clip was empty. Piper put her arm over the general's shoulder, shooting the triggerman in the head before he could respond. Winding through more hallways they killed two more triggermen, one of whom was a ghoul. Nick commented when he came to another set of stairs.
"More stairs? Who built this damn vault, a fitness instructor?" It made Piper chuckle, and she thought she saw the general smirk. At the top of the stairs were two more triggermen, who were quickly taken out by Piper and the general. They kept following Nick, who spoke again as they rounded the final corners and jogged through the last rooms. "Skinny Malone and the rest of the boys are waiting for us somewhere. The name's- uhh- ironic, but don't let that fool you. He's dangerous." They arrived at a final locked door. "Another locked door. Shouldn't be too hard…" Nick took little time in fixing the door's panel. "Okay, I got it, but I hear big, fat footsteps on the other side. Once we step through this door, get ready for anything."
The trio walked through the door. Nick stood to the left, Piper to the right, the general front and center. They came face-to-face with Skinny Malone.
"Nicky? What're you doin'? You come into my house. Shoot up my guys. You have any idea how much this is gonna set me back?"
"I wouldn't be here if it weren't for your two-timing dame, Skinny. You oughta tell her to write home more often." The "two-timing dame" defended herself.
"Awww… poor little Valentine. Ashamed you got beat up by a girl? I'll just run back home to daddy, shall I?"
"Should've left it alone, Nicky. This ain't the old neighborhood. In this vault, I'm king of the castle, ya hear me. And I ain't lettin' some private dick shut us down now that I finally gotta good thing goin'."
"I told you we should've just killed him! But then you had to get all sentimental… all that stupid crap about the 'old times.'"
"Darla, I'm handling this! Skinny Malone's always got things under control."
Oh yeah, then what's this guy doing here, huh? Valentine must have brought him here to rub us all out."
"Stop throwing your life away with these thugs. Go home Darla." Piper was surprised. She had expected him to exactly what Darla had predicted. Perhaps he actually cared what happened to Darla.
"I… I… You're right. What am I doing? I gotten all mixed up."
"Darla? Where- wh-whe-where are you goin'?"
"Home, Skinny. Where I should've been all this time. This is goodbye for us."
"Oh, come on Nicky! You cost me my me, now you and your friend cost me my girl?"
"My friend here just did you a favor. You always did have bad taste in women. Now that she's not around to feed that temper of yours maybe you'll see sense and let us walk. Ya still owe me for two weeks in the hole."
"You smug, overconfident ass… Geyouttahere! Alright, you get to the count of ten, I still see your face after that, I'm gunning the three of you down!" The three ran towards the vault's exit as Malone started counting. They made their way through the network through which they had come, coming at last to the exit, where Nick looked up and spoke.
"Ah, look at that Commonwealth sky. Never thought anything so naturally ominous could end up looking so inviting…"