Diamond City came as a shock to me. I'd expected it be something like Megaton, and in some ways it was, but on a much larger scale. It was built inside a baseball stadium, which was a good idea, since the large walls offered so much protection. There were also several guards outside the front gate, but none of them came up to talk to me as I walked inside.
I went down to the marketplace, looking around in mild awe at just how good things were. There were several stalls, with people selling different things, and there weren't people swearing and fighting everywhere. I hadn't even been approached by a prostitute yet.
I wandered around, and then went to one of the stalls, which appeared to be selling random bits of junk. The trader twitched as I walked up to her. "I've never seen you before. Are you synth?" she asked straight away.
"A what?" I replied, slightly taken back by her hostility.
"A synthetic human. A machine that pretends to be human. Are you one of those?"
"Oh yeah, like an android? No, I'm not." I shook my head.
She narrowed her eyes at me. "You don't sound like you're lying. Fine. We can do business." She still looked suspicious of me, and I almost started to miss Penny.
"Do you sell ammo?" I asked, and she turned around to get an ammo box, glancing over shoulder as she did like I might steal something. I was offended; I hadn't stolen anything for at least three weeks. I bought some fusion cells, and a handful of 10mm, since I'd picked up a pistol from a raider I'd killed along the way.
I continued walking around, and near the entrance, I saw that there was a young girl selling newspapers. I went up and bought one from her, and leaned against the wall of the building she was near while I read it. The news was actually an interview with a vault dweller, who turned out to be Dexter. I discovered from reading it that he was from before the war, having been cryogenically frozen, and that his wife had been killed, and his son kidnapped, and he was searching for him. His situation was grimly familiar to me, just with the roles reversed. I only had to hope that his search ended better than mine did.
Just as I was about to start walking again, a woman exited the building next to me. She stared at me for a couple of seconds, and then looked to my arm, and raised an eyebrow. "So, you're with the Brotherhood, are you? I saw you guys come in on that big airship, saying that you come in peace. Not exactly subtle."
I slapped my palm to my face. "Yeah, that's us. I'm Knight Harmony Grace."
"Piper," she said. She tilted her head to one side, looking at me thoughtfully. "I'm a journalist, I write the newspaper here. Could I have a little interview with you? People want to know what the Brotherhood's doing here, and I aim to deliver the truth."
"I can't divulge too many details, mainly since I don't know them all myself." I folded my arms.
"So, the Brotherhood's keeping its own members in the dark about what it wants?" she said, her eyes lighting up at the prospect of an interesting story.
"No, not at all. It's because I just got here, like today actually."
"Oh. Well, how about you just give me a statement? You can be the voice of the Brotherhood," she suggested.
"Sure, I can do that." I thought about what to say as she searched for something to write on and with.
"Whenever you're ready."
"To the people of the Commonwealth, the Brotherhood isn't here to take over, or change the way you live. The Brotherhood of Steel is here for you, and we intend to do everything we can to help you. We helped the Capital Wasteland when it was in need, and let us do the same for you," I said, and she scribbled it down. "Is that the kind of thing you wanted?"
"It's fine. What do you want me to put your name down as?" she asked.
I smiled to myself. "Put me down as the Lone Wanderer." She looked up, and raised her eyebrow. "There's a reason behind it, trust me."
"Okay, I can use this for my next story." She put her writing things in her pocket, and looked over to the young newspaper seller. "Hey, Nat, it's getting late, why don't you head on in?" she called to her.
"Oh wow, it is late. Say, do you know how far away Goodneighbor is?" I asked Piper.
"Not that far, but it's pretty dangerous getting there," she said.
"That's fine. I'm just checking Diamond City out; can you give me one place to visit? Somewhere interesting." I looked down at my Pip-Boy, scanning the pathways to find the shortest route. The shortest was usually the more dangerous, but I was starting to get impatient as I grew more tired.
"There's Valentine's Detective Agency. You might like that." She pointed me in the right direction, and I waved to her as I headed off. A detective agency was both reassuring, and worrying. Did people go missing that much to warrant someone dedicating their profession to it? Still, I liked the sound of meeting a detective, and I especially liked the neon signs direction me there. Light and colour were usually absent from the Capital Wasteland.
The agency itself was a very small room, down a narrow corridor. There were two desks, one in the corner, and one directly in front of me, and there were people sat by both of them, a man and a woman. The woman was in front of me, and I smiled at her.
"Hello, I'm not interrupting anything, am I?" I asked, struggling to close the door behind me without tripping over a chair.
"Do you want to file a missing persons report?" the woman asked wearily.
I shook my head. "No, I'm just looking around, if that's all right?"
"Fine, just don't mess anything up." The woman sighed, leaning her elbow on the table and resting her head on her hand. I walked over to the man in the corner, and stood by his desk. He was wearing a trench coat, and fedora, so I made the educated guess that he was the detective.
"What's your name?" I asked, smiling.
"Nick Valentine," he replied, turning to look at me. I was startled by his appearance. He had some kind of artificial skin, some of which was missing, exposing the wires and circuitry beneath, and he had glowing yellow eyes.
I swallowed, and held out a hand. "I'm Harmony Grace, nice to meet you."
"Well that's a refreshing change. I thought you Brotherhood types hated all synths." He stood up, and I sat on the edge of his desk.
"Do you get a lot of work around here?" I asked, shifting uncomfortably. If I was completely honest with myself, I didn't know what my stance on synths was. Before then, I'd only ever met one, and I'd originally turned him in to his owner, but then had a crisis of conscience, and revealed to the person that he was an android, and that his owner wanted to take him back. The android then gave me permission to kill his owner, and bodyguard, which I did, but not after collecting the reward from him. After that, I could never look at the person in the same way, knowing that he was actually a machine, but it didn't make me dislike him.
I realised I'd zoned out while Nick was talking to me, and I hadn't taken in any of it. "So, is there anything else you need?"
"No, I'd better be setting off anyway. I've got one last settlement to visit." I stood up straight, and headed for the door. Nick adjusted his hat using his robotic hand, and I stared at it uneasily. I blurted out goodbye, and left hurriedly. So many times I'd listening to Maxson talking about how synths shouldn't be allowed to exist, and agreed with him, that I felt quite disloyal, but I wasn't sure who to. To him, or to me, and my basic sense of human decency. Then again, it had been several years since someone last called me nice.
I could take my mind off my inner moral turmoil as I walked through the ruins of Boston, since it was full of raiders and super mutants. I'd learned their tactics, so it wasn't difficult to predict how they'd be set out, and what their defences would be like. The raiders in the Commonwealth seemed to be slightly smarter, as they had turrets set up outside their camps. Not smart enough though, because they picked a fight with me. The only ones I couldn't deal with were ones high up, but it was easy enough to just dart around the nearest building, because by the time they got down to the ground, they would've lost me.
I spent about half an hour simply trying to find the entrance to Goodneighbor, as I had taken a wrong turning somewhere trying to avoid a super mutant holding a primed mini nuke. There were never any of those in the Capital Wasteland, but I had an instinct to shoot anything emitting a high pitched beeping and shouting at me. It was almost completely dark by the time I finally arrived, but my escapades in the ruins had made more awake than I was previously.
There were a few people milling around, though none of them looked particularly approachable. I decided I'd wait until morning to talk to people, and as I walked through the town, I saw a hotel. The town wasn't particularly big, though it had seemed enormous when I had to walk round most of the perimeter outside. Quite a lot of people were sleeping outside, on sleeping bags and under shelters, if they had them. I quickly walked past them, and into the hotel, before my pity escalated.
I bought a room as fast as possible, and then ran upstairs as soon as the woman had given me the key. I didn't trust most of the people there, and from what I'd seen and heard walking through it, I gathered that this was where people who weren't allowed into Diamond City came. I couldn't think of a reason why anyone would come here willingly.
It was rather cold in the hotel room, so I didn't bother getting undressed, and I climbed into bed fully clothed. I also kept my laser rifle nearby, just in case. I lay on my back looking up at the ceiling, going over the events of the day in my head. Hopefully if I woke up early enough, I'd be able to look around the town a little, and then be back at Boston Airport before sunset.
My cheeks flushed when I remembered my argument with Maxson, and not with anger, but embarrassment. It was a low blow of mine, insinuating that Sarah's death was her own fault. Maxson thought she was perfect, and he'd idolised her. It had been nine years since, and he had been eleven at the time, but I knew exactly how he felt. I resolved to apologise to him, and then pray that he'd forgive me. He probably would. We'd said worse to each other and moved past it.
I turned onto my side, and curled up into a ball, and slowly fell asleep while trying to block out that bad memories that had surfaced.
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