When they returned to Nick's office, the three of them didn't really have much in the way of leads. Nick was reluctant to bring it up (since he didn't want to encourage Nora's descent into Crazyville), he did eventually reveal that a doctor in Goodneighbor might be able to get info off of the cybernetic implant Nora found in Kellogg's skull. (Because really, what else could it have been?)

"Oh yeah, oh yeah!" Nora sang tunelessly. "Who was right to dig in Kellogg's busted old dome? This gal!" She swayed her hips while pointing at her chest with both thumbs.

"Who ate human flesh?" Piper asked, pointing a finger at Nora. "That gal!"

"Oh, I barely ate any," Nora pooh-poohed. "And I was delirious! I bet if someone hurt Nat you'd eat their brains too." Piper opened her mouth to protest, but Nora turned to Nick before giving her the chance. "You go on ahead to this Goodneighbor place," Nora said to him. "Piper and I will get there sooner or later."

Nick frowned at that. "There's only one half-solid lead left we've got to find your kid, and you want to run off to, what, run some errands?"

Nora hesitated before answering. "It's not like that, Nick," Nora tried to explain. "I mean… you did say that this lead might not bear any fruit for us, right? And besides, at least we know Shaun isn't currently in any danger, right?"

"If you can count on the word of a cold-blooded merc like Kellogg, sure," Nick acknowledged.

"Look: The truth is… dealing with Kellogg was just very, very taxing, emotionally. I know that the odds he just straight-up lied to me are probably fifty-fifty. But I need to rest and recuperate some before I can continue with my search. I'll be no good to Shaun if I can't put 110% into my search for him."

"…Alright, I guess I can buy that," Nick finally said, but he narrowed his eyes at Nora nonetheless. "If it's all the same to you, then, I've got a few things to do of my own before I head on out to Goodneighbor."

"Oh, sure, sure," Nora said, relieved. Truth was, she wanted to share more of her reasoning with Nick and Piper, she really did… but the problem was that there wasn't much in the way of actual reason behind it, mostly hunches. Something was off about this whole business, more than the face value interpretation of "A fucked up secret society with evil robots kidnapped her son and murdered her husband". It reminded her of trying to catch butterflies when she was a little girl — she'd run up to one, reach out both hands, and just when she thought she had one in her grasp, it fluttered away, out of reach. It was maddening. And — she didn't even want to admit this in the conscious part of her brain — some of her theories were so terrible, so monstrous, that she simply couldn't face them head-on. Not yet, not for a long while. She needed time to cope with… with whatever waited for her at the end of the road.

So, the best way to do that: she needed to distract herself. "Oh yeah, Ellie said there were some open cases you needed help with?" she asked.

"By all means, help yourself," Nick said. He gestured to Ellie, who already had the relevant files on hand. "Here you go. Some of these are a real tough nut to crack, I tell you," he said.

Nora opened the first file, skimmed it, then walked out the door. Ten minutes later, she was back. "Earl Sterling was killed by Doc Crocker," she announced with little fanfare. "He was a creep who fucked up doing surgery on the dude. Crocker bumped himself off rather than be taken into custody." She gave Nick a shit-eating grin. "Yeah, real tough nut, Nicky," she sassed.

"Don't give me that sass, young lady," he snarked. "Try the case of the Gilded Grasshopper on for size."

"The lead we have for that one goes to Faneuil Hall," Ellie said. "We haven't done much work on it mainly due to the place swarming with super mutants."

"Gotta bring my power armor, check," Nora muttered. "Anything else?"

"We were contacted by a man named Kenji Nakano," Ellie said. "He lives in the far northeast of the Commonwealth. Another missing persons case, I believe."

Nora made a face. "I don't want to have to go all the way over there if I don't have to." She sighed. "Okay, I'll let you know if I find any leads on this grasshopper case," she said. She and Piper left, made final preparations, and then traveled north back to Sanctuary Hills.

XXX

Sturges was waiting to talk to Nora when she arrived. "Hey, we've got three of those big-ass water purifiers going," he said. "But we're at peak capacity for generating power. We'll need something a lot bigger."

"What, like a nuclear reactor?" Nora asked.

"Something like that," Sturges said. "It'll take a while for us to figure out the science and engineering shit, but you can keep an eye out for any nuclear material out there while we're hammering down the specifics."

"Awesome," Nora said. "I love carrying around nuclear materials! I just said to Piper the other day, 'Piper, I don't have nearly enough reasons to go out of my way to grab nuclear materials, which I love to just roll around in like an extremely wealthy duck.'"

"What the fuck?" Piper said aloud, which applied to the concepts of 'I never said that', 'What's a duck', and 'I'm assuming it's an animal of some kind so why would it be wealthy?'.

"Anything specific I should be looking for?" Nora asked. "Cracked-open nuclear reactors? Undetonated warheads that a thriving city has been built around?"

"Well, almost anything you find out there radioactive these days is likely to be an alpha particle emitter," Sturges explained. "And nothing that drastic… who would be crazy enough to build a town around a nuke?" he wondered. "Just look for certain pieces of medical equipment, industrial equipment… some radioactive animals might have quantities accumulated in their systems… that old board game, Blast Radius… Anyway, alpha particles are so weak, they can't even pass through skin, so you don't have to worry about radiation damage from carrying it around in your backpack, or even holding it in your hand for prolonged periods." He frowned in consideration. "Best not to eat any, though."

Nora sighed. "I will attempt to suppress my ravenous hunger for radioactive isotopes," she told him evenly.

They offloaded all of the miscellaneous shit that Nora had scooped up as of late, and were just outside of Sanctuary Hills when a great roaring sound overtook them. Overhead, a flying craft moving too quickly to be identified zoomed south, trailing smoke, angled on a downward trajectory. "Holy shit!" Nora shouted. She exchanged an uneasy look with Piper.

"We need to see if anyone was hurt… right?" Piper asked. Nora agreed, and they hustled on south as fast as they could. It was a trek that took several hours regardless and, not for the first or even the thousandth time, Nora wished she once again had a working car. They finally reached Oberland Station, which Nora figured was roughly on the same heading they'd seen the craft descend towards. The settlers hadn't seen anything, but they reported a loud crash located somewhere to the southeast. Nora thanked them, then she and Piper went to examine it.

"Holy shit, it's a motherfucking flying saucer!" Nora said, admiring the fallen craft, a childlike grin on her face. "We've got fuckin' spacemen! Invaders from Mars! This is the coolest fucking thing!"

Piper was much less enthusiastic, eyeing the fallen craft apprehensively. "Uh, Blue, if we've got actual hostile aliens running around, 'cool' isn't the word I'd use," she said.

"Oh fiddlesticks," Nora chastised. "I can take on any alien!" She did some quick child-like karate chop motions, completely failing to impress Piper.

Piper put her hands on her hips. "Blue, they've got, uh, ray guns, and space ships, and God knows what else! How would you take them on?"

Nora thought about it for a moment. "Well, first I'd let them capture me into their main ship. I'd bust out of my cell with the help of another abductee, and we'd do some guerrilla warfare shit on the aliens. Taking their own guns, busting out some other prisoners… they'd be frozen, kidnapped from their own time, just like me! I dunno, there'd be this badass cowboy and a Japanese samurai from, like, hundreds of years ago. Anyway, after fighting our way through the ship, we'd seize the control room, kill the captain, and then defeat another alien ship in a pitched battle for the fate of the human race!" Her look of enthusiasm changed to chagrined. "Oh, and accidentally level a good portion of Canada in the process. Oops."

Piper stared at Nora, her mouth slack in amazement. "That is the dumbest, most unrealistic thing I've heard in my life — and I've spoken to Mayor McDonough on more than one occasion. How did you even come up with that?"

"I dunno," Nora shrugged. "It just came to me. Hardly even had to think about it at all."

Piper shook her head. "Right. Sorry, I'm just scared."

Nora gave her shoulder a good squeeze. "Hey, I'm scared too. I just mask my fear with inane drivel to throw off my enemies."

That caught Piper off-guard. "Wait…" She furrowed her eyebrows. "Are you saying that I'm an enemy?"

"I also like to confuse my friends," Nora said, giving Piper a trolling grin. "It's a problem, I admit."

They searched around the area of the crash site for a while before Piper found something. "Hey, Blue? You're gonna want to see this," she called out. There was a puddle of what could have been blood on the ground… save for the fact that it was green.

"Good find, Piper!" Nora praised. They got their guns ready — Piper her old reliable pistol, Nora her new reliable hand cannon she'd pried out of Kellogg's fingers. "Let's kick intergalactic ass," she said, as they followed the blood trail. It led a short ways away, into a nearby cave. "Okay, on three, we rush in there. Got it?" Piper nodded. "One… two… three!"

They ran into the cave and immediately began taking ray gun fire. "Shit!" Piper threw herself to the ground, while Nora dashed behind a stone obstruction. "Uh, Blue, a little help?!" she called out.

"Working on it!" Nora called back. She crept around the obstruction to the other side. Taking a peek, she saw the alien and had to suppress a giddy squeal. It was short, bald, had a large, bulbous head with green skin, and an itty bitty nose-thing. It wore a red and white spacesuit, and appeared more or less humanoid otherwise. It was concentrating its fire on the entrance, where Piper still lay. Nora picked up a small rock and hucked it over the alien. It hit the wall behind it and the creature turned on a dime to see what made the noise. Nora leapt from cover and tackled the extraterrestrial, quickly wrestling his ray gun away from him.

Piper looked up and saw Nora victorious. "Hell yeah! Now kill it!"

Nora looked up at Piper, unbelieving. "What? No!"

Piper shook her head. "Blue, this thing tried to kill us literally thirty seconds ago."

"He's just hurt and scared!" Nora reasoned. "His ship went boom, and he thought we were, I dunno, space bears!"

"Blue, he's trying to beat you to death right now," Piper pointed out. Indeed, Nora had flipped the little guy onto his back (still pinning him down) but his hands were free and they were ineffectually pounding on Nora's chest.

"Pff!" Nora pffed, waving a hand dismissively at Piper. "He's hardly trying!" She got up and grabbed the alien by the scruff of his neck. "Come on, let's take him to Diamond City. They can give him a medical checkup and then hold onto him until a Minuteman patrol can secure him."

Piper grimaced. "Alright, Blue, but if he starts implanting eggs in everybody's chests, I'll be blaming you."

"Fair!" Nora said.

XXX

Excerpt from Publick Occurrences, an article by Piper Wright titled "We are not alone!":

For generations, humanity has wondered if we were alone in the universe, or if life did indeed exist beyond the confines of our little planet. Today, my fellow humans, I can confirm that there is indeed intelligent life out there! Early yesterday, yours truly accompanied Nora Jones, the general of the Minutemen, on a mission of mercy after observing a flying craft undergo a crash landing. (Apologies to those who want to tour the site — to keep the saucer out of Institute hands, we will not be disclosing where, exactly, it went down). We didn't know what to think at first — was it perhaps one of the so-called vertibirds flown by the newly-arrived Brotherhood of Steel? (See yesterday's article "Steel Hearts?" for more information about them).

We investigated the crash site and discovered none other than an extraterrestrial being, a creature born under a foreign star! It sustained some injuries from the crash landing, but after rushing it to Diamond City, our own Doctor Sun was able to sufficiently patch it up and send it on the course of healing. It is hoped that this act of goodwill can go on to bring about positive relations with this as-yet-unknown alien civilization.

People who wish to see the alien and donate some money to its well-being can do so at the Diamond City security office.

XXX

Nora put down the paper. "Good stuff as always, Piper," she said with a smile.

"Oh come on, that's a load of horseshit and you know it!" Piper snapped. "The only way I could write an article more filled with lies is if —"

"Yes, yes, the punchline is Mayor McFucknugget, like usual," Nora said. "They're not lies, per se…"

Piper held up a finger. "Well, for one, I left out the part about how it wanted to kill you, me, Doctor Sun, the security guards who put it in its cell —"

"That's not lying!" Nora challenged. "Well… okay, maybe lying by omission. But at least it's not a straight up fabrication!"

"— and then, when we brought it to Doc Sun, he said…" Piper's face crinkled, then she burst into laughter, Nora following soon after in anticipation of the shared memory. "He said… he said…" She wasn't able to finish the sentence, laughter consuming her.

"'I'm not a veterinarian, but Polly can put that thing down and butcher it!'" Nora finished, and they roared with laughter even more.

After a few minutes, their laughter died down. "Still think it's bullshit that McDonough is charging people fucking admission to gawk at the alien," Piper grumbled.

"Oh, he'll only be able to do that for a day or two, until the Minutemen can come pick him up and secure him in Sanctuary Hills," Nora reassured her.

"Is your old neighborhood really secure?" Piper asked. "I know you've got a few sentry guns set up there, but could it really stand up to an alien attack?"

That shut Nora up. She'd have to ask Garvey if there was a more secure location the Minutemen could operate out of.

XXXXXXXXXX

Kenji Nakano is, of course, the beginning of the Far Harbor DLC, but don't get excited because it'll be a good long while before Nora makes it over there. (And she will sooner or later, fear not).

Good ol' alien encounter. Sadly you can't pacify him in the game, but Nora cares not for such trivialities. Her strategy for dealing with extraterrestrials should sound familiar — that's pretty much exactly how Mothership Zeta for Fallout 3 plays out. Question: Did you ever wonder why the alien's saucer crash-landed in F4?

Oh, how are y'all enjoying the TV show? I'm having a blast so far!

Also, it's been almost a month since my last update. My bad! I suddenly got hyperfixated on writing a fanfic based off the live-action RE movies, to the detriment of my editing work on YOLT. (Well, the first ones, I guess? Need to see the new one sometime). Once I finish it through the events of the first movie, I'll start posting it, so something for all you RE fans to look forward to! :)