Piper hadn't said a word to Nate since they left Bunker Hill. She figured it was an appropriate response to an inappropriate situation – even if she realised he hadn't meant anything by it, he had still crossed a line that she hadn't given him permission to cross, and she felt that that was reason enough to give him a lesson in manners. She was also pondering whether to keep travelling with him after this little escapade. Was his story still worth following if she felt like she couldn't trust him anymore?

She didn't really know. He had seemed genuinely sorry for what he had done, after all, but given how she had had experience of being taken advantage of in the past, whether by potential leads letting her down or by her fellow Diamond City residents mocking her behind her back, she had learned never to take things at face value. She supposed that any questions would have to wait until later, though, because they were just outside the door to Goodneighbor. Before she put her hand to it, she turned back towards him. "This is it, Nate – time to see if our little scheme works," she said. "Here goes nothing."

Nate gave her a short smile, shifting his pack a little on his shoulder as he did so. "Here goes nothing," he echoed.

One brief detour into the Third Rail to find out where they should go in order to find Bobbi No-Nose later and they were standing outside the locked door at the end of a dingy alleyway. Reaching out, Nate rapped on the door three times, and the viewing slit at eye level slid open rapidly.

"What do you want?" a gravelly voice barked as a pair of yellow ghoul eyes appeared.

"I'm Dan, and this is Sally," Nate said. "We'd like to join your crew."

"You wasted your time. I'm not hiring right now. Beat it," the ghoul snapped before she slammed the viewing slit shut.

"We have some of your merchandise," Nate called out. "Some jackass at Bunker Hill stole it. We thought we'd bring it back."

That did the trick. The door opened slowly, Bobbi No-Nose glaring at them suspiciously before Nate handed her the package he had been carrying. "Where did you get this?" she demanded.

"Somebody jumped Mulligan," Nate explained. "Beat the poor guy pretty bad, too. We stopped that thief from running away and Mulligan told us to bring it back to you while he healed up."

Bobbi raised a hairless brow. "Let's say I believe you. Why should I let two scavvers I've never met before get in on my business?"

"Because we're the best," Nate said. "Sally and I know how to crack open any safe and fool any security in our way. You ever been to the old military outpost down south? It's cleaned out, and you know who did that? We did. Every last piece of salvage and hardware in there is gone. We sold it in Diamond City for a shit-ton of caps." He extended a hand toward Bobbi. "You're pre-war, right? You know how tough military codes are to crack."

"Either you're a great thief or a great bullshitter," Bobbi replied sourly. "Lucky for you I now happen to have openings for both." She beckoned the two of them towards the innermost door of the room, which led down to a dank, damp hollow, strewn with diced chunks of mirelurk carapace and viscera, as well as the shredded remains of at least one human and a strange modified eyebot, the front of its carapace adorned with a cone of wires and lights. Piper felt the back of her throat burn with the acid tang of vomit but quickly forced it back down, determined to keep her composure. She knew how quickly people like Bobbi caught the signs of someone playing a role they didn't fit.

"What happened here?" Nate said, dropping to one knee and briefly examining a rubbery, disembodied mirelurk eyeball before tossing it away like an empty candy wrapper. "You forget to get the exterminators in first?"

"Yeah, yeah, heard it all before," Bobbi said with a wave of one gnarled hand. "That poor sap on the ground is what's left of my tech guy Mel. He thought just having his stupid robot beside him would protect him against three mirelurks. As you can see, he was wrong." She shrugged. "Gave as good as he got for a few minutes, though."

"What was he planning on doing with that thing? A robot with no arms doesn't seem like the best way to dig a hole."

"From what Mel told me it uses sound-waves to demolish stuff," Bobbi said, as if that made anything clearer. "He thought it'd do the same to the 'lurks but he must've forgotten to program it to be a fighter." She paused. "Oh well. Bigger share for the rest of us, am I right? Let's get to it."

Nate grimaced as he felt more rancid sewer-water soaking into his boots. The old tunnel was ankle-deep in the stuff and it smelled like stale vomit crusted on the floor of a gas-station toilet. Up ahead Bobbi pointed to the right fork of the tunnel. "That way leads right underneath the strong room," she said. "There's enough caps and chems in there to make us rich and keep us that way for a very long time."

"You sure about that?" Piper said, cynicism thick in her voice.

"Completely," Bobbi retorted. "How many times do I have to tell you to trust me? Nobody's keeping you here, girl – you want to turn around and go back, be my guest."

Nate was about to go to Piper's defence before he heard frenzied splashing from the tunnel up ahead, which turned out to be a horde of slobbering feral ghouls, which hissed and growled at the sight of prey. "Incoming!" he yelled, unhooking his rifle from his shoulder and unloading a burst of fire directly into the centre of the mob, blowing off the limbs of two of the foremost ghouls and dropping them face-first into the filthy water. The ghouls behind them stumbled over their fallen pack-mates, causing a ripple effect two or three ghouls deep before the pack swarmed past the pile-up. Nate took advantage of the momentary delay by grabbing a grenade from his belt, yanking out the pin and tossing it underarm into the path of the horde, where it lay dormant for a moment before shredding more of the creatures. Behind him he heard the crisp crack of Piper's trusty ten-millimetre pistol and the throaty cough of Bobbi's slapped-together handgun. Within seconds the majority of the horde was either dead or dying, but Nate didn't trust that that would be the last they saw of any ghouls down here. Bitter experience had taught him that the rotting beasts liked dark, damp places where they could take shelter and ambush their prey – he had heard far too many stories of far too many scavengers who had underestimated the danger of abandoned ruins and ended up as a meal.

He had no intention of following in those particular footsteps. He went to look at his left wrist to check the map on his Pip-Boy before he remembered that he had taken it off and stowed it in his pack for this particular expedition because he had not wanted to blow his cover story, but this seemingly never-ending wandering underneath the city was starting to concern him. He needed to know where they were. Setting his pack down on the driest patch of tiling he could find he opened it and withdrew the Pip-Boy, clicking the knob at the top to switch to the map display.

As he did so Bobbi stared at him in disbelief. "Where the hell did you get that?" she exclaimed, incredulous.

"Took it off a trader outside of Vault 81," Nate replied without looking at her. "Easiest kill I ever made. The idiot didn't even have a gun."

"Well, put it away," Bobbi snapped. "Ain't gonna need fancy tech like that where we're going."

Nate narrowed his eyes as the map revealed their location. "And where is that?" he demanded, turning the Pip-Boy's screen towards Bobbi scornfully. "This tunnel doesn't lead anywhere close to Diamond City, but you knew that all along, didn't you?" He levelled his rifle at the withered gangster's torso. "Start being honest with us, Bobbi. Who are we really robbing here?"

"Okay, okay, boy, just calm down," Bobbi said, holding her hands up in submission. "Thought I could keep this quiet until we got where we needed to be, but I guess the cat's out of the bag now. I got a tip about Hancock's private strongroom."

"Hancock?" Nate repeated, incredulous. "How did you think you could get away with that?"

"The mayor's got more than enough caps to go around," Bobbi retorted. "Look, all I want is to get outta Goodneighbor – if I get out I can set up somewhere else without that chem-head asshole breathing down my neck every five minutes. He and that crispy-fried pet bitch of his are nothing but a pain in my ass I can do without." She held her hands out to either side. "If you two want to back out now I ain't gonna stop you, but if you decide to stick around I could use some new… business partners, you get me? Could be a whole new start for all of us."

Nate glanced at Piper, who was standing with her arms crossed over her chest and a sceptical look on her face. "What do you think, Sally?" he asked.

Piper shrugged. "I can think of worse things to do," she said simply. "Might give us a good story to tell our kids, I guess."

Definitely back in character, Nate thought. "Okay," he said, "we're in. Lead the way."

"Great," Bobbi said, her yellow eyes flickering with a visible elation. "It's just down this tunnel here." She moved off to the right fork of the tunnel up ahead, sloshing through the filthy water with a new determination in her stride.

Instead of following her, however, Nate hung back just long enough to turn to Piper and lower his voice almost to a whisper. "Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked. "This is Hancock we're talking about here. He doesn't give up on grudges easily."

"Yes, I'm sure," Piper whispered back. "What do we have to be afraid of? I mean we're not actually going to steal anything, are we?"

"No, of course not," Nate said, "but you never know – Hancock might decide he doesn't want to take the risk of anyone else knowing about his secret stash. This could be dangerous."

To his surprise, Piper grinned. "Wouldn't be the first time someone's tried to kill me because of a hot story. What the hell, might as well make it an even hundred, right?"

Nate pondered the point for a moment before he heard Bobbi yelling at the two of them to keep up. "Looks like we're up," he said. "Better put your game face on, Sal."

The end of the tunnel was in sight, a few stray strands of light peeking through the cracked floor above the three would-be thieves. Nate didn't like the look of it one bit, since the chamber they had arrived in was strewn with ragged piles of concrete and steel which looked like they had fallen away from the ceiling.

"'Spose you're wondering how we're gonna get to the stash," Bobbi said, as if she had anticipated more questions, and pulled a small shaped breaching charge from one of her waistcoat's pockets. "This oughtta make a dent big enough for all of us to climb through. Probably won't bring down the entire ceiling, but better to get to a safe distance before I set it off, right?" She clambered up to the peak of one of the piles of rubble and placed the charge on the ceiling with the tips of her fingers, pushing its priming switch as she did so and then retreating backwards into the tunnel. "Come on back here, you idiots," she snapped, exasperated. "You wanna get squashed?"

Taking Bobbi's advice, Nate and Piper ran back to where she was standing, detonator in hand. "Close your eyes and cover your ears," Bobbi warned them. "This is gonna be real bright and real loud."

She pushed the button, and even with his eyes screwed shut and his hands over his ears, Nate still felt the force of the blast and the noise of the explosion in his teeth and chest. Gingerly he opened his eyes and saw that the floor had crumpled downwards, the broken shards of concrete forming a precarious pathway to the surface. "What'd I tell you?" Bobbi crowed triumphantly. "Easy as pie. Now come on, we got a storeroom waiting for us." Nate followed her lead, using jagged outcrops of concrete as handholds and expecting one of them to slice his hand open every time he took hold of a new one. He counted himself lucky when he finished his climb with only a couple of minor scrapes to show for it. Looking around at his surroundings, though, it seemed that Bobbi had led them to an empty warehouse with nothing inside except a few empty crates.

"This doesn't look like a big score," he said.

Bobbi rolled her eyes. "That's because the stash is through that door over there." She extended a gnarled finger towards the wall to her left. "Do I have to spell out everything everything for you two? Starting to wonder if I shouldn't just shoot you both when we're done here." Throwing up her hands in disgust she turned on her heel and opened the door. Following behind her, Nate saw that the chamber beyond was without any illumination except the sickly red glow of emergency lighting, but from what he could make out there were stacks of sealed crates stamped with Vault-Tec's logo. For a moment he wondered idly which facility they had been looted from, but before he could finish that thought the warehouse's main lights erupted into life, blinding him for a second or so until his eyes adjusted. When his vision cleared, he saw Hancock's bodyguard Fahrenheit standing in front of him holding her customised flamethrower, flanked by two men in what looked like hazmat suits and similaely armed with flamethrowers.

"Well, well, well," Fahrenheit said. "Looks like Bobbi found herself a couple of little patsies to help her out." She glanced dismissively at Bobbi. "You really thought we wouldn't know what you were planning, Bobbi? Hancock's had his eye on you for a while."

"I figured as much," Bobbi replied, and to Nate's surprise she smiled. "Donnie, Karl? Now would be a good time to step in."

The men in the hazmat suits held their flamethrowers up and jabbed Fahrenheit in the ribs with them. "Don't you fucking move, bitch," the one on the left snarled. "Let Bobbi take what she wants and then let us all leave, or I burn off what's left of your face."

"Don't try to con a con artist, kid," Bobbi said, a smug edge in her voice. "You heard the man."

Fahrenheit's shoulders slumped. "Fine. Take what you want. But just remember, Hancock doesn't let go of grudges. And he doesn't like to lose." She paused, inclining her head downwards and to her left. "Donnie, Karl? Do as we discussed, please." In response, the two men shifted their weapons away from her and pointed them towards Bobbi. "What was it you said? 'Don't try to con a con artist'? Maybe you should take your own advice. Hancock has far deeper pockets than you – it was a piece of cake to make a bigger offer." She stepped back a pace and folded her arms before she directed her gaze towards Nate and Piper. "Now, you two still have a choice. You can burn with Bobbi, or you can leave and never come back to Goodneighbor ever again." She rocked back and forth on her heels for a moment, her eyes glittering with amusement at the tension in the room. "So what's it going to be? Are you going to stay, or are you going to leave?" Unfolding her arms, she reached into the bag around her waist and tossed two sizeable pouches in their direction, which landed on the ground near Nate's feet. "Two hundred caps each if you want to jump ship. Up to you – but either way this is goodbye. I promise Hancock won't miss you."

Nate looked over at Piper, who had gone a nasty shade of pale under her layer of artificial grime. "What do you say, Sal? In or out?"

Piper's shoulders slumped in defeat. "Out," she said, "on one condition."

Fahrenheit raised an eyebrow. "Oh? And what would that be?"

"Let Bobbi go. We haven't taken anything from you – she doesn't deserve to die."

"Unacceptable," Fahrenheit snapped. "Bobbi broke the rules. She has to pay the price." Before either Nate or Piper could react, she raised her right hand and clicked her fingers. The abrupt whoosh of burning napalm was deafening, the smell of burning flesh nauseating. Mercifully, it didn't take more than a few moments before it was over. Bobbi's charred corpse twitched a couple of times and then lay still, wisps of sooty smoke wafting upwards. Fahrenheit pulled her lips into a thin line, before she gestured to a doorway behind Nate and Piper. "That way is the fastest route out of here. Don't forget your payment." She bent down and picked up the two fallen pouches of caps, holding them out for Nate and Piper to take.

As they left the warehouse, reward in hand, Nate saw Piper emerge into the sunlight and vomit violently onto the cracked ground after she had taken a few shaky steps. Stepping closer to her, he reached out hesitantly and rubbed her back to try to help her get everything out of her system. When she was done she stood up straight again, coughing twice before wiping at her mouth with a handkerchief. "Oh, God," she said hoarsely. "How did this go so wrong?"

"Don't be so hard on yourself, Piper," Nate said as gently as he could. "You couldn't have known Bobbi was planning on trying to take on Hancock."

Piper glared at him. "That's it, though, isn't it? I should have known! What kind of lousy journalist doesn't do proper research?" She ran a hand over her mouth. "And now Bobbi is dead, and I could have stopped it, and –"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Nate said. "You couldn't have known that was going to happen. What happened wasn't your fault. Bobbi would have died even if we hadn't been there."

"But you don't know that," Piper said, hopelessness thick in her voice. She rubbed her hands down her face before fishing her lighter and a metal case of cigarettes out of her pack, lighting one and taking a juddering drag off it. Her hands stopped shaking for a second, smoke spilling from between her lips. Wiping at her eyes with the heel of her other hand, she continued "Look, Nate, thanks for helping me out, but this was all a big mistake… I think I just want to go home. Maybe I'll see you around, I guess."

And with that she was gone, walking away into the distance while Nate stood and watched her leave. He thought for a moment about following her, but decided against it. The last thing she needed was company right now.

He, on the other hand, really needed a drink, and he knew just where to get one.

The Combat Zone had never been Piper's first choice for an evening's entertainment, but after the events of the past couple of days she felt like doing nothing else but watching raiders beating the hell out of each other for a handful of caps. If nothing else it meant that they would be hitting someone other than her for once. That, and she had an offer to take up.

She handed over the entrance fee to the swarthy raider standing outside the door, gun at the ready. "Evening, papergirl," the raider said, giving her a gap-toothed smile. "Good to see you back."

Piper pursed her lips. Anonymity was apparently not going to be the order of the day at this point. "Hey, Jimmy," she replied. "How's it going?"

"Oh, same old, same old," Jimmy said. "Lost another tooth in a fight last week." He chuckled. "Almost got a full set – check it out." He put his thumb under the cord around his neck and lifted it up from inside his shirt, showing that it had a number of broken teeth threaded onto it. "Impressive, huh?"

"Yeah, real impressive. You'll be eating your mole rat through a straw in no time," Piper said with a sigh, before she decided to cut right to the chase and find out if her journey had not been a total waste of time. "Listen, is Cait fighting tonight? I need to talk to her."

"Sure, she's in the cage this evening," Jimmy said. "Looking to make some easy caps? I hear the odds on her are pretty good right now. Tommy might even throw in a Friday night bonus if you're lucky."

"Thanks for the info, Jimmy, but I just need to talk with Cait, and then I'll be gone."

"You sure you don't want to stick around? I get off in an hour – mind if I buy you a drink?"

"Sure, if it gets me inside," Piper said. "No slipping anything in my drink, okay? I know the mayor of Diamond City, and he'll come and find you if you do anything to me."

He'd probably give you a medal, Piper thought with amusement as she watched the colour drain from Jimmy's face.

"Okay, okay, sure, you can go in," Jimmy babbled softly, evidently having had the fear of Atom put into him by Piper's words. He stepped aside from the door quickly and Piper walked through into the interior of the Combat Zone, the rank smell of mildew and desperation in the air. As she neared the cage the scent changed, becoming thicker, saltier and more metallic with every unwashed raider and dry, crusted bloodstain she passed. She didn't recognise either of the current occupants of the cage, so she supposed that Cait was probably backstage, self-medicating with Psycho or alcohol. Probably both.

Same old Cait, she thought with a moment of amusement.

She moved towards the door leading to the backstage area, before the raider standing guard at that exit put his arm across it. "No entry," he said flatly. "Boss's orders." She recognised him, but she didn't really talk with him that much. She had still made a point to learn his name, though – it never hurt to establish a personal connection with someone who could get her where she needed to be.

"Really, Paul?" Piper said, sounding disappointed for a moment before she reached into her pocket and brought out a small pouch full of caps, which she pressed into his free hand. "How about now?"

Paul cracked a wide smile, closing his fist and slipping it into a pocket of his armour. "You know, I think I'm due a break. Promise you'll stay here until I get back, Piper?"

"Cross my heart," Piper said with a wink. She knew how far a handful of caps went with Paul – he was one of those guys who would sell their own grandmother for a bottle of flat beer. When the raider had moved away towards the bar, she moved quickly through the door and towards Cait's private room, which she had earned by becoming the Combat Zone's star attraction. Taking a moment to make herself look a little more presentable (although she didn't quite know why, considering Cait was never too fussed about her own appearance), she knocked three times on the door and waited for a moment before Cait opened it.

Piper blinked. Cait didn't have a stitch of clothing on her. She took a brief pull on the cigarette she was holding between the first two fingers of her right hand and casually exhaled a stream of smoke with a satisfied look on her face. "Evening," she said matter-of-factly, not even caring that Piper and anyone else passing by her quarters could see everything she had to offer. "What brings you to my door, princess?"

"Well, I, uh – I thought I could buy you that drink you said I owed you," Piper said, instinctively trying to avert her eyes. "So, um, how about it?"

"Oh, come on, love, don't get embarrassed," Cait replied, amusement hanging thickly in her voice. "You can look. I know you want to."

"I really don't, Cait," Piper said, keeping her head turned to the side, both eyes closed tightly. "I just want to talk to you. In public. When you've got clothes on."

Cait sighed, rolling her eyes. "Fine. If that's the way you want it, I'll go get dressed. Just let me throw out my guest."

"Guest?" Piper asked, risking a glance at the door. "You mean you weren't –"

"Alone? No," Cait said, examining her ragged fingernails with a chuckle. "Must have forgotten to mention that. Think you might recognise who, actually."

"What?" Piper said, slight taken aback. "I don't know anyone you know." She took another glance, to find that Cait had stepped aside and opened the door a little wider.

"I think you do. Take a look," Cait said, a crooked smile on her face. Piper noticed something crumpled on the floor behind her. Something blue and gold, smeared with stripes of dried, rust-coloured blood.

A vault-suit.

Oh no.

"Come on in, princess," Cait said, grabbing Piper by the hand and dragging her inside the room. "Don't be so shy."

Piper tried to keep her eyes closed, but her curiosity got the better of her and she opened them to see the full interior of Cait's comparatively palatial quarters. The floor was strewn with discarded clothing, empty bottles and dirty plates, and in the corner of the room which was furthest from the door, there was a bed. It wasn't empty.

Lying on top of it, naked and handcuffed to one of the bedposts…

… was Nate.

Oh God.

"See?" Cait said gleefully as her face appeared over Piper's shoulder and her hands playfully squeezed Piper's waist, making her jump. "Told you you didn't need any introductions." She snickered. "Want to make this a threesome?"