They were just heading out of Diamond City when Nora stopped. "Hang on, got a new radio signal coming in all of a sudden."
"Huh? How do you know?" Piper asked.
Nora ignored the question as she tuned to the new station. She listened for a minute, frowning. "Well, looks like it's a distress signal. Some dude is being held prisoner in Trinity Tower. By super mutants."
"Oh fuck, that poor guy," Piper lamented.
"Yeah," Nora agreed. "And to think, my poor power armor is stuck in cyberspace, so it'll miss all the action." She proceeded to begin checking her weapons, starting with her shotgun.
"…You're not actually going to try to save him?" Piper asked, astonished.
"Of course," Nora said, looking at Piper like she was the dumb one. "I'm a Minuteman. Not just that, I'm the G-D general of the Minutemen. I didn't see any written set of rules, but I'm pretty sure one of them is 'You help people who are in trouble, especially if they ask for it'." She holstered her shotgun and checked on her Institute rifle. "Hell, I probably would still be gung ho to help this guy even without that baggage. That's why I became a lawyer in the first place — to help people." She put away the laser and checked on the big-ass revolver she got from Kellogg. "I mean, I know I come off like a silly, flighty, dumbass a lot of the time, and I'll admit, a lot of that is for show, and yeah, some of it is who I really am, but I do take some things seriously." She put away the revolver and checked on the alien ray gun. "And I am seriously going to wreck those super mutants and save this guy. I don't care if I have power armor or if I'm bare ass naked."
XXX
They were headed east through the city, towards Trinity Tower. (As best as Nora could remember from her prewar mental map of downtown Boston, anyway). "Hey, so, how did you know you had a new radio signal?" Piper asked again.
"Oh!" Nora looked a little embarrassed at having forgotten the question. "Well, every time my Pip Boy picks up a new station or signal or whatever, it plays a little sound."
"But I didn't hear a sound," Piper pointed out.
Nora's mouth formed an O. "Ohhhh yeah, when I found my Pip Boy, it had a pair of Pip Buds along with it." She opened a hatch on her Pip Boy, revealing two little slots where the Pip Buds could be stored. Only one was inside. "I only wear the one, since I want to have an ear free for any bad guys — it'd be hilariously stupid to die if a raider shanked me while I was sucked into my jams." She smiled. "It's really convenient when I want to sneak around an enemy base, but also listen to Diamond City Radio."
Piper started to reach out her hand, then remembered her manners. "Oh, may I?" she asked.
"By all means!" Nora grabbed it and handed it to her. Piper fitted the wireless earbud into her ear and Anything Goes filled her brain. They walked along in companionable silence, bobbing their heads along with the music, until they reached Trinity Tower.
They laid low across the street, crouched behind a car, staring at the building, watching the super mutants inside meander about aimlessly. "Okay, Blue, how do you wanna play this?" Piper asked.
Nora rubbed her chin, deep in thought. "How dumb did you say these guys are, again?"
Piper groaned. "Something tells me that you're about to do something about as smart as they are."
"Probably!" Nora agreed, grinning. She patted Piper on the shoulder reassuringly before quickly rummaging around in her pack. She found what she wanted and jogged across the street as quietly as she could. She stood by the side of one of the doors for a few minutes, until one of the super mutants inside deigned to amble outside — whether to check for humans, or to take a piss, or out of sheer boredom, who could really say. Nora tapped him on the shoulder and Piper, still watching, felt her jaw drop open at the sheer temerity of the act.
The super mutant turned around, its already ugly face turning into a snarl of contempt. "Stupid human! You die!" it bellowed, raising a rusty, battered old rifle.
"Actually, before you kill me, could you do me a favor?" Nora asked. The super mutant paused, more out of confusion than courtesy — nobody had ever bothered trying to ask it a question before. "Could you hold onto this for a few seconds?" She held up a landmine. "Afterwards, ten seconds or so from now, you can kill me and eat my guts and all that fun stuff." She gave him a big smile. "I promise."
"Urgh," the super mutant pondered. "Okay, human! I kill you soon!" Nora gave the landmine a little twist — armed and ready — before handing it to the super mutant. The super mutant was puzzled at first as it started beeping, then roared in fury as its diminished mental processes finally put two and two (well, okay, one and one in this guy's case) together and realized exactly what it was holding. It raised its rifle with one hand but, the poor fella, he didn't think to drop what he was holding in his other hand. Nora dove backwards and rolled behind a rusty old mailbox. The landmine exploded, blowing off the super mutant's ugly mug (thereby increasing its charisma). More angry screams from the super mutants inside indicated this strategy would not work a second time.
Nora drew her alien ray gun and charged in, firing at the first super mutant she saw. Its body surged with energy, then collapsed into a pile of ash. "Oh fuck yes fuck yes FUCK YES!" Nora screamed, running forward and firing again and again. "EAT DISINTEGRATIONS, YOU FUCKING FRANKENSTEIN'S MONSTER-LOOKING BASTARDS! I AM THE GOD OF ASH, AND I DEMAND TRIBUTE!" By the time Piper showed up to provide backup, the entire ground floor had already been cleared, fresh ash swirling and mixing with the centuries of accumulated grime.
"You know, Blue, I shouldn't be shocked seeing you digging around in a pile of ashes for loot, yet I somehow am," she said. Nora didn't bother looking up at her as she sifted through one of the dust piles she'd made (which still faintly glowed). "Are you even finding anything?" she asked.
"Yes!" Nora cheered. She stood up, shook as much ash off her arms as she could, and proudly held out her hand.
Piper slowly blinked, then looked into Nora's face. "That would be, ah, four bullets, Blue. Thirty-eight caliber. Do you even have a gun that takes those?"
"That's… that's irrelevant!" Nora rebutted. She pocketed the ammo and moved on to the next ash pile.
Things went surprisingly well for the building being a super mutant stronghold. Of course, it helped that Nora had her alien gun that disintegrated the mofos in one or two hits. (Nora wondered about that, but the thought was far down in her mind, which was currently filled to the brim with "EAT DISINTEGRATIONS, MOTHERFUCKERS" over and over again). I won't bore you with the details; how often can I write "And then Nora shot another bunch of bad guys and took their stuff" and keep it interesting? Let's just content ourselves that after creating a whole heap of ash, they found themselves on the roof of the building, facing off with a super mutant named Fist.
"Eat shit, Fist!" Nora shouted. "Fist ain't shit!" She plugged him square in the face with her blaster, which he just shrugged off (being the boss enemy of the dungeon). "Oh no, you did not just resist my alien gun!" The power cell had been depleted by that last shot, and Nora didn't have time to go digging around in her pack for one of the replacements she'd taken off the alien, so instead she drew Kellogg's revolver.
"We are the future!" Fist yelled.
"Future this, shitlord." Nora pulled the trigger, causing Fist's head to explode in a big ol' bloody splatter.
As she rooted around in his sack, Piper pursed her lips. "Hey, Blue? Why did you keep calling him Fist?"
"Because that's his name?" Nora said.
"Okay…" Piper said. "But I was listening to all his taunts over the loudspeakers as we were climbing the tower, and I don't remember him mentioning his name once."
"No, he didn't mention it," Nora admitted. "I just saw it floating over his head."
"Ah, of course," Piper said. "Do you… always see peoples' names floating over their head?"
"Nah," Nora said. "Sometimes they're off to the side. If it makes you feel any better, I promise I didn't make any deals with shinigamis to get this ability."
Piper honestly couldn't tell if this was Nora fucking around or another one of the little cracks that dwelt within her sanity, so decided to leave the subject alone. She didn't even ask what a shinigami was.
"Key!" Nora said, holding it up proudly after finding it in Fist's possession. . "Now, if, uh, whatever his name is is still alive, his cell should be up here somewhere."
It was a short search, fortunately. "Get us out of here!" Rex Goodman begged. (Nora tried to remember to memorize the name, seeing it float next to him like that).
"More of my brothers will be here soon!" rumbled a voice from inside the cage. And then he walked into view — another super mutant. "They know a human is attacking the tower!" Piper drew her gun even as Nora unlocked the door, a smile of uncertainty on her face.
"Uh, Blue, you wanna get that ray gun ready?" Piper suggested, a little frantic.
"Nah," Nora said. "This isn't a trick, right?" The door was already open, so it was a stupid, pointless question.
"It's not a trick!" whatever-his-name-was said. "He's a prisoner too!" He gestured to his fellow prisoner. "Look, he's as gentle as a lamb!"
"See, Piper?" Nora said. "A lamb!" Piper narrowed her eyes and gave the prisoner guy a skeptical look.
"…Okay, maybe a psychotic, overly muscled lamb. But I swear on the first folio you and your friend are in no danger!" he assured.
"The fuck is the first folio?" Nora asked.
"Strong will not hurt human if human rescues Strong and Rex," the super mutant — Strong, presumably — said.
"I trust him!" Nora said, entirely sincere. "What could possibly go wrong?"
"Damnit, Blue," Piper said through gritted teeth. Even in the 23rd century, Murphy and his ways were still renowned and reviled.
"Strong here has a new purpose in life," the prisoner guy said. "I came here to teach these poor, ignorant creatures culture. I started with… Macbeth."
Nora gasped. "You're supposed to call it the Scottish play! No wonder you got your shit wrecked, idiot!"
The dude didn't seem to hear Nora's scolding. "I guess they found it funny," he said sulkily. "All of them, except for Strong here."
"Strong learn secret to human power from Mack Beth," Strong said. "Milk of human kindness. Strong will find milk. Strong will drink milk. Strong will have secret power of human."
"Yes, yes, of course you will," the dipshit who likes to jinx himself said. He turned back to Nora and resumed telling what happened. "When they grew tired of taunting me, they threw me in this cage." He grew a sly little smile. "Little did they know, there was a radio in here."
"They know," Strong challenged. "You bait to catch more humans."
"Haha, idiot!" Nora taunted, pointing at what's-his-face.
"What?" Dumbass turned back to Strong. "Why didn't you tell me?!"
"Strong thought you know," Strong said.
"Hey Piper, what was that you said about super mutants being stupid?" Nora whispered to her, grinning. She was just loving this shit.
"See what I have to work with?" Dumbass said, exasperated. "I've promised Strong to help him find the milk of human kindness if we get out of here."
Nora thought for a moment. "What will the other super mutants do with Strong?"
"Throw him off the building," Dumbass said dramatically. "They're taking bets on how many times he'll bounce."
"Piper!" Nora turned to Piper, tears in her eyes. "They're gonna hurt the poor baby!"
"Baby?" Piper said, absolutely positive Nora had snapped.
"We've gotta keep him, we've just gotta!" She was going full-on puppy dog eyes to Piper.
"Damnit, Blue, this is the… agh!" She threw her hands up in resignation. "Sure! Let's befriend a super mutant! Maybe we can get a pet deathclaw! Tame a mirelurk and ride it around!"
Nora tut-tutted at Piper. "Piper, that doesn't make any sense. Why would we ride around on a mirelurk if we have a perfectly good pet deathclaw?" She turned back to what's-his-name. "Okay, should we just go back the way we came, or…?"
"Follow Strong," the guy said. "He knows the best way down off this cursed tower."
"Go to lift," Strong instructed, pointing the way. "Go fast, humans!"
The old window-washing lift was a short walk away. It was literally in sight of the cell. Nora wanted to tell the dude all this, but decided his parade had been shat on enough today. As it began descending (and the remaining super mutants within the tower began taking pot shots at them), what's-his-face began to strike up another conversation. "So, that whole 'milk of human kindness' thing," he began. "That's from Macbeth."
"Call it — pyew pyew! — the fucking Scottish play, idiot!" Nora hissed, firing back at the super mutants with her Institute rifle.
"I thought I could civilize these savages by teaching it to them," the idiot said, high off of the sound of his own voice.
Nora reflected on all the problematic shit that was wrong with that statement, all the things she could point out that Idiot Dipshit was wrong or misinformed about, and finally settled on muttering: "Dumbass."
"Strong here believes it is the secret to human power. So he wants us to help him find it," he went on.
"A shame I'm not still nursing," Nora muttered. She realized Idiot had stopped talking, and Piper had stopped firing, and looked over at them. They both had shocked, horrified looks on their faces. "I said that out loud, didn't I?"
"What DON'T you say out loud?" Piper asked rhetorically.
"…I shall uplift our spirits by quoting from the Bard!" Idiot declared, trying to fill the silence (and his head) with anything other than the mental images currently rampaging through his psyche.
Eventually, after a whole graveyard's worth of super mutants and two whole earplugs' worth of Shakespeare quotes from a pretentious douchebag, they reached the second floor, one quick trot to ground level and the relative safety of the street beyond. "Many thanks for that timely rescue!" the idiot gushed as they walked down the stairs. He blathered on a bit more, but Nora had pretty much completely blocked him out by this point. Then, he just fucking randomly shoved a dress into her hands and said something about a radio station.
"The fuck?" Nora said, looking at the dress in her hands.
"Yeah, that's… a really weird reward," Piper said.
"Hang on," Nora said. She began to strip right there in the middle of the staircase.
"Oh God, Blue!" Piper said, turning away, a blush rising on her cheeks. She noticed Strong was, in fact, staring, and swatted him. "Don't stare, you… you big galoot!" she chided.
Strong huffed. "Humans weird," he mused, complying. "Super mutants no care about no clothes."
"Piper, honestly, I don't care if you look or not," Nora assured her. "Or Strong, for that matter." She'd gotten all her armor pieces off and was unzipping her vault suit.
"It's not… ugh!" Piper grunted. She saw Strong turning to look again and elbowed him in the ribs. "About that… what you said up on the lift…"
"Oh yeah," Nora said, chuckling. "Whoops!"
"You're not… attracted… to Strong, are you?" Piper asked.
Nora gave Strong an appraising eye. "Well, he is kinda hunky. Tall… muscular… a bit of a simpleton, but clever when you don't quite expect it… plus, the whole 'not trying to kill me' thing is really hot all on its own." She thought about it for a moment. "So, kinda, yeah."
"Oh my God, Blue, you're killing me here!" Piper complained.
Nora took another few moments to finish removing her vault suit and put on the new dress. When she was finished, she said, "Okay, turn around!" Piper and Strong complied.
"Damn, Blue, you're hot!" Piper said, then covered her mouth in shock. "Oh! Uh, I mean, you look — that dress looks — uh!" She wondered why she was suddenly so flustered.
"Thank you, Piper," Nora said, giving her an almost predatory smile. "Well, Strong, what do you think?" she asked. "Does this dress scream 'Plus three to charisma', or what?"
Strong scratched his head. "Hum… what charisma?"
"Do I look good in this dress, Strong?" Nora rephrased.
Strong shook his head. "Dress no help kill others. Wear armor! Fight! Kill!"
She looked back to Piper. "He's very practical too, it seems," she said. She folded up her vault suit, but started to strap her armor back on.
"Hey Blue, isn't your vault suit a bit more protective than that dress?" Piper asked. "I mean, not that I'm agreeing with Strong here, but at least it's a tiny bit thicker?"
"It is," Nora admitted. "But I look fucking fabulous in it, and it's not like I can just instantaneously change my clothes by going into my Pip Boy and tapping the screen where I keep a detailed log of everything I have on my person."
"Wait, what? Who does that?" Piper asked.
Nora ignored the question. "So, I'm going to be keeping my dress on for the duration, and that's that." She finished putting her armor back on. It's a good thing the mod that lets her put armor on over all clothing was enabled.
"No, seriously, Blue, let me see this list." Piper put her hands on her waist. She wasn't going to back down from this nonsense for once.
"Okay!" Nora held out her wrist. Piper (with Nora's help) navigated through the Pip Boy's menus until she came across a list of everything Nora had on her person. And it really was exhaustive. "Kellogg's Pistol… Institute Rifle…" She furrowed her eyebrows. "What does the little dot next to some of them mean?"
"Oh, that's what I have equipped," Nora explained.
"…Why did you call your new dress Agatha's Dress?" Piper asked.
"…Because that's its name?" Nora said.
"Ah." Piper zipped her lip — she did not want to get back on that particular merry-go-round. (Not that she knew what that was). She was impressed at the itemized, alphabetized list of the medical supplies Nora had on hand, but then her mental state swung back to concern and dread when she saw she had an equally meticulous list labeled 'Junk'. "Blue, you have some serious mental health problems," Piper sighed. "God, how many fucking bones do you have? And why are you collecting them?" She'd almost forgotten Nora's insistence on keeping that skull she'd found in Diamond City's water supply.
"I just think they're neat!" Nora said with a shrug.
Strong had grown impatient with all the yakking. "Go find milk of human kindness with Strong!" he declared.
Nora gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. "Okay, buddy, let's go get you some milk of human kindness. Maybe we'll find some chocolate powder, make it chocolate milk of human kindness."
"Where to now, Blue?" Piper asked.
"Back to Diamond City," Nora said. "It'll be hilarious seeing the looks on everyone's faces when I bring him around. Plus, I'm sure Becky Fallon'd appreciate the extra business when people swing by to buy a new pair of pants."
"You're real sick sometimes, Blue, you know that?" Piper asked, though she was smirking.
"I'm faintly aware of the fact," Nora replied, also smirking.
They began making their way west, back to Diamond City, shortly before all hell began to break loose. Above them, just above the rooftops, a Brotherhood of Steel vertibird was slowly flying in the same direction. It was a sight people in the Commonwealth were gradually becoming accustomed to.
"Strong no like metal bird," Strong grunted, looking up at it.
"Yeah, none of us do, buddy," Nora assured him. "But hey, maybe they're friends?" Piper snorted. "Okay, maybe not." Above them, the vertibird started to bank around. "Okay, maybe we should take cover?"
"Take cover? Why —" Piper, sadly, had no way of knowing about the kind of destruction air support could rain down on ground forces, other than a vague understanding that the Great War had been waged by airborne weapons.
It was not a lesson she'd have to learn that day, though, as a missile flew up from atop one of the buildings and demolished one of the vertibird's engines in a spectacular explosion. It began spiraling downward, the pilot struggling to control the site of its crash landing. Amazingly, the trio watched as four figures leapt from the vertibird, all four landing upright in the street, their power armor keeping them safe. The same building that the missile had come from erupted with high-powered weaponry coming from various windows. The bullets did little more than ping off the power armor, however.
"Gotta be the Gunners!" Piper shouted over the tumult. She turned and saw that Nora and Strong had fallen back a ways down the road and started to jog to catch up to them, pausing once to look back at the fight.
That right there is what saved her life. The damaged vertibird was almost overhead, coming in for a very hard landing right in the middle of the street. Piper screamed and dodged out of the way, and she still would have been clipped by the craft if she hadn't dodged off to the same side that had had its engine blown off. Scrambling on her hands and knees, she made her way to a nearby alley, just in the nick of time. The vertibird, whilst sliding to a stop, bumped into one of the ancient cars that still littered the road; the impact was enough to detonate its radioactive fuel, and that blast was enough to pulverize the vertibird and all who still remained onboard. Within half a second, the vertibird gave off a secondary explosion, filling the street entirely with large chunks of flaming debris.
"Blue!" Piper shouted, peeking out from the alley and seeing the devastation wrought by the crash. "You alright?"
"Yeah, me and Strong are fine," Nora hollered back. "Listen, Piper, don't wait for us to find a way around — just get back to Diamond City, okay? We'll meet you there!"
Piper gave an uneasy glance at the ongoing battle down the road — just as she looked, one of the Brotherhood guys took a direct hit from the same missile launcher that'd downed the vertibird. That proved to be enough to kill him, but one of his friends lifted something that looked like a minigun, only instead of bullets a torrent of laser beams poured forth from it and burnt big, jagged holes in the side of the building. Another soldier tossed a grenade into an open window; bright green fire exploded outwards from within. A plasma grenade, great.
"You be careful, Blue! Keep an eye out for her, Strong!" Piper shouted, before going deeper into the alley to find her own way back to Diamond City.
XXXXXXXXXX
Pip Buds aren't a real thing of course, but the game offers no explanation as to how you can blast music out your Pip Boy and it doesn't break stealth. (Although the Fallout show does have a scene where Walton Goggins' character uses Bluetooth (or maybe it's called Greentooth, haha) to pair up a little wireless earbud with a Pip-Boy, so I actually kinda predicted that back in '22? Score one for me, I guess!)
"Candygram for Mongo!"
38 caliber ammo is mostly used by pipe weapons in F4, and Nora doesn't own any of those, haha.
I think it only occurred to me when writing this chapter how funny it'd be if the player's ability to see people's names floating over their heads was actually something inherent to the Sole Survivor. So basically, anytime in a previous chapter when Nora doesn't know a person's name, you can chalk that up to her being polite. PLOT HOLES AVOIDED!
It's never explained why Agatha's Dress is called such, but it does give +3 Charisma. Maybe it once belonged to the violin gal from Fallout 3? Maybe she and Rex dated?