Begin Recording

Red Truth

Recording by Scribe Ellison

Piper's hat was on the floor like she'd thrown it. Piper herself was up in the loft, in the chair in front of her terminal, staring into space and not typing. She heard the door and called softly, "That you, Blue?"

The door to Nat's little cubby was closed and Dogmeat lay on the floor outside. He lifted his head and thumped his tail at me then went back to sleep.

I climbed the little stairs and sat on the floor at the top, leaning against the wall.

Piper said, "You all right?"

"I guess. I thought he might see… I don't know. Are you all right?"

Piper laughed a painful little sound and leaned back, her chair creaking. "Dream come true, right? I got to meet the monster under the bed. But it's an old man and he doesn't know anything. I thought if I ever learned what really happened it would help somehow. If we learned the truth about what the Institute wanted we could save ourselves. But you saw the Institute and I just got to interview the guy in charge… and they don't even think about it at all."

She sounded just miserable. I said, "Well we learned a lot of other things and we can use it to make sure the Institute doesn't do anything like that again."

"Heh. You should hope, since you're the one trying to build a new government."

"That had occurred to me." I said, smiling a little since a sarcastic Piper was a big step up from a defeated Piper. "Shaun said they're not coming for you. I believe him. He actually said he didn't want to prove you right. So maybe you can worry just a little less."

A ghost of a smile. "Well that's something." She got up and stretched then sat down next to me at the top of the stairs. We leaned on each other shoulder to shoulder. "Am I really your best friend?"

Faces of my college friends fluttered in front of my eyes and to banish them I teased, "Well, you and Nick. And Preston. You're definitely my best girlfriend. If this were before the war we could go get makeovers and shop for clothes but these days I can say there's no one I'd rather get in trouble with."

"Getting in trouble… it's what folks like us do. Let's do it again tomorrow."