"C'mon Danny, it was ONE STORY! And the Commonwealth NEEDS the press! It's a basic human right!"
"Pipes, ya gonna get yaself killed one'a these days wrintin' stories the mayah doesn't like." A voice crackled through a speaker to a persistent girl facing it.
"Can't you let me back in just for a moment?! If you're gonna kick me out, do it with some class and lemme get my stuff!" She pleaded with a note of anger.
"No, Piper, the boss wouldn' be too happy with me. He's already unhappy with you." It crackled through to her again.
She flipped her black hair and huffed. There wasn't much she could do but sit and wait until the mayor thought she had "learned her lesson". The super mutants would probably detect her soon if she stayed out any- woah! Guess she was done with her time? The giant metal door creaked open with loud banging and screeches. She leapt up with joy. "I knew it! You were on my side the whole time, D- Nicky?"
A synth in a noir-film-reminiscent duster and fedora stood before her with a gentle smile. "Hey, doll. Havin' some issues with the guard?"
"Yeah, ol' Danny-boy is bein' a real pain." She glared behind the synth and stuck her tongue out.
Danny glared back. "You're lucky Valentine's vouching for you. Again."
She smiled wide and pranced in. "Thanks, Nicky! You're the real 'doll' here!" He could only laugh and sweep past her into the open.
It was always somewhat euphoric for him to leave the safety of Diamond City. Out here was the real mystery. The Commonwealth lended a never-ending supply of new cases. Today was no different. Except that it was. The guard had heard screaming and seen flashes of orange light. It was coming from a sadly familiar direction and Nick Valentine was already piecing together what that meant for their neighbors in Goodneighbor. As screwed up as that town was, they didn't deserve a fate as bad as an assaultron attack.
He brushed off the climbing anxiety that something irreversible may have happened and plunged headfirst into the shadows of the looming dilapidated buildings.
Piper sat at her printing press staring into its gears and inner workings longer than she probably should have. It was hopeless. The girl may never run again. Not with the way the generator was. She hadn't had a good story in months and the royalties from her last paper had only gotten them enough for food and water. Not extra parts. Not that it mattered anyway, noone but Takahashi and Myrna with her Mr. Handy would sell to her and her sister. Mostly because of her talk of synths and the Institution.
"Told ya." Her sister was playing with an old toy car she had found in the trash from the upper stands. "Shoulda listened when we had money."
"Bah...it's easily fixable!" Piper cheerily replied. She wasn't too sure of her words. She backed away from the machine and sighed. This would probably mean the end of her business for a little while. She would have to venture the wasteland for caps...and junk.
A knock on their door interrupted her thoughts. "Yeah?" She called out, and the knocker entered.
"Hey, got a minute?" Ellie Perkins, Valentine's assistant, came in. "Got a kinda big story you might be interested in."
"That'd be great," she sighed, "if our generator hadn't taken a huge dump."
"Oh, well that's terrible!" She frowned deeply, but then smiled. "How about this? I'll get you whatever you need to fix it up, and we'll just call it even for your help with the molerats last week, yeah?"
Piper bit her bottom lip thoughtfully. It was a good deal, but she had already been saved by Nick almost an hour ago at the gate. Her better judgment won out and she finally puffed. "Yeah, that'd be great, if Valentine hadn't already saved my hide earlier. Had a bit of trouble coming in, but he vouched for me. It's probably noted as repayment for the molerats." She smiled at Ellie, who chuckled and gestured to the printing press.
"It's fine, hun. I'll just mark it as a favor to ask for later, okay?" She smiled and sat down on Piper's couch, Nat – having finished with her playtime – immediately ran over and curled up next to her. She admired Ellie for her resolve as Nick's assistant. It put her in a dangerous position. It was cool. She was cool.
"So what's what with this 'big story'?" Piper smirked. There was always something big at the Valentine agency. She loved the juicy gossip and endless stories. Most were classified, but Ellie always recognized when a good one came up. With her discretion, she sort of decided what was and was not safe for Piper to print without putting her family at risk. This was gonna be a good one, Piper thought decidedly. She got so few of those these days.
A quick check over her body and Daisy sighed in relief. No damage other than scrapes, bruises, and a broken rib. She had woken up, finally, inside a damp shack that smelled of mold. They must be in a swamp of some sort. "Han-" She coughed violently and wheezed in pain. Yelling (or even loud talking) was not an option. She took shallow, slow breaths to keep from wincing in pain from simply breathing. Another check of her surroundings, and she decided moving could be fine. She got up from the mattress she had been lain on and shucked off the red coat that had covered her.
Hancock loved that coat, so she was sure to fold it neatly before stepping out of the shack. He must be around here somewhere...
She spotted him before he spotted her. She smiled and lifted her unoccupied arm to great him. His black eyes glinted in the morning sun when he noticed her. He was bent over a wheelbarrow with-
"Oh my god, K-L-EO?!" She thought she dreamed the whole thing – that it had been caused by her accidentally inhaling some drug or gas or something. No, there K-L-EO was, shut down and laying limply in a dirty, rusty green wheelbarrow. "How...what happened?" She felt tears sting her eyes and run down her torn cheeks.
"When you passed out, I set you under a sheet of metal in case I failed. I did what you said. Sure enough, there was a wire in the back of her head that was sticking out. She was tough to dodge around and it took every ounce of strength I had just to reach it. Pulled my damn arm out of the socket..." He touched his shoulder and winced, hissing at the pain the slight pressure caused. "Tried to rip my arm off, but I got her...Dunno what you meant about a 'drive' though." He gestured to the robot and allowed Daisy to bend over her, inspecting carefully.
"How'd you get her in the wheelbarrow?"
"Easy, actually, when she shut down, she tipped over. I thought I had failed, but I saw a little flashing red light on the back side of her head. I guess she's in stand-by mode? Anyway, I found the wheelbarrow in Bobbi's old place. It hadn't collapsed yet so getting the wheelbarrow out was easy enough. I tipped the wheelbarrow over at the bottom of the pile of rubble we were on, then rolled her into it. Kinda hard to lift and roll the damn thing. Real hard whenyour shoulder's killin you from setting your fuckin' arm back in it's socket." He grit his teeth and took a shaky breath. "Surprised you and me survived. I watched her...I watched her maim people she sold guns to just the day before..." He scoffed lightly and turned back to Daisy.
She shakily handed him it coat and wrung her hands. "So where are we now?"
"Ruins just outside'a Boston. I wanted to find Valentine and get his opinion on all of this, but I didn't wanna leave a maybe-not-deactivated assaultron alone with a helpless old lady." He chuckled dryly when Daisy knocked his arm.
"Aint *that* old, ass." She sat down and rubbed her face. "So...what do you wanna do now that this little old lady is up?" She smiled wryly.
"I guess we take this giant scary robot to a smaller robot?" He offered. They sat next to each other, enjoying being alive and silently mourning their destroyed town – no – home for a while. It was starting to get dark when they got up and moving again. They would be fine navigating in the dark, but the problem didn't lie in the darkness. It lied in how they would enter anti-ghoul Diamond City to find Valentine dragging a heavy ass assaultron with them.