"What do you mean you can't open the gate?! Stop playing around Danny, I'm standing out in the open here for cryin' out loud!" Piper hissed, glaring at the callbox posted outside of the "Great" Green Jewel's front gate; the only way into her home and the only way out- unless you could fly somehow. Sadly, Piper'd left her rocket boots at home… A home which now sat behind a foot of rusting copper-green steel and the corrupt bureaucratic spider web that was Diamond City's security.

Piper could practically smell Danny's anxious sweat through the callbox. "I-I got orders to not let you in Ms. Piper… I'm sorry- I'm just doing my job." Piper believed that, of course. Danny Sullivan was a spineless wet Takahashi noodle-bowl of a human being, but that's exactly the kind of person you'd want in your corrupt police force; a thoughtless yes-man. All the same, if Danny were standing here instead of the callbox, Piper was afraid she might actually take a swing at him. Danny would lay her out once he got over the initial daze of a suckerpunch, of course, but that first swing might be sweet enough to last her the subsequent night in jail.

"Ooooo- Just doin' your job," Piper began, mockingly. "Protecting Diamond City means keepin' me out, is that it!? 'Oh look, it's the scary reporter!' Boo!"

Danny cut in as Piper was finishing her impersonation. "-I'm sorry, but Mayor McDonough's really steamed, Piper. Sayin' that article you wrote is all lies. The whole city's in a tizzy."

Piper was, in the mature fashion befitting Diamond City's best (and only) truth-seeking reporter, making childish gestures at the callbox as Danny gave his defensive account. Just hearing that name made her blood run hot; McDonough. Rolled off the tongue like razor blades. Passed through the mind like an puke through a straw. Piper realized her earlier thought was incorrect; if Danny was standing in place of this talkbox, she'd probably have just kept screaming at him like she presently was. Now, if that slimy overstuffed radroach McDonough were here, she'd stab a pencil through that stupid fake flower he keeps in his lapel; break it off in whatever servos or gears were probably tick-ticking underneath.

Piper boiled, pumping her fists down as she spun around, letting out a cry of gutteral frustration at the uncaring swatter-wielding copper statue that had shadowed Diamond City's main gate since well before it was the last spark of human civilization in Boston. "You open this gate right now Danny Sullivan! I live here! You can't just lock me out!"

The talkbox gave only anxious static in reply. Piper felt the rage slip as fast as it had come on, being replaced with dread as the seconds ticked by. She sighed and looked around again, desperate. No one. Oh my God, I'm actually trapped outside. Piper brought a finger to her lip, scratching at the corner of her cheek. Her sister came to mind; Nat, who was undoubtedly hawking the article that landed Piper in this hot water at anyone that crossed within a hundred feet of their news stand this very moment.

The Synthetic Truth. Ms. Hawthorne's interview and the recounting of the Broken Mask incident was necessary, an important topic to bring back to the forefront of the minds of Piper's readers. However, her going with her gut's instinct and muckraking the mayor? All but calling him a synth with no evidence but her hatred of him and his- let's call it what it is, folks- regime? "A bit heavy handed…" Piper muttered to herself as she began to pace. She'd have time enough to regret this later, though. She needed to get in. God damn it, she needed to get in.

Her mind raced around Diamond City's perimeter faster than feet ever could, remembering every nook, hole, and cranny. Once upon a time, there'd been a hole in Diamond City's walls that had been obscured by an unbolted bookshelf. A bookshelf, just shoved in front of the breach. Sure, it was probably enough to fool a super mutant or a doped up raider, but still. It had been Piper who'd brought that absolute travesty of security theater to light. The public outrage that followed had the hole sealed- concrete, this time. There'd been many, many holes like it since in the years that followed. Not one had gone undiscovered; Piper had seen to that. Diamond City had never been so secure from the world outside… Synths aside, anyway.

Now, her altruism had solidly reared its benign head and bit her on the ass. She ripped off her flatcap and ran a hand through the greasy black mop of her hair, muttering to herself, going over what sections of the wall might have a gap in them. Nothing came to mind- not anymore, not after she had been so thorough. And this is my reward, she thought, as she turned and drove her fist into the security wall.

The regret came a short second before the splitting pain. Her knuckles screamed out in surprised anguish. She cradled her hand, letting out a teeth-gritting cry of hurt and frustration. "Danny- Please, for God sake, you can't leave me out here! What about Nat? What about me? What about-" She thought about saying "the truth", but felt that might not be quite on Danny's mind as it was on hers. "What about Nat?"

That's it Piper, lean on his basic human sympathy toward children. Very highbrow of you, very noble.

Danny's sigh carried through the static. "I… I don't know, Piper, but I bet she's a lot safer than you are. Look… Maybe-" Danny's voice got low. "Maybe the Mayor'll calm down, ok? I bet your sister'll give him an earful, and… I bet she won't be the only one. Maybe you just need to last until then."

"Oh- Oh yeah!" Piper cried back. "Just sit here and wait for a Super Mutant to sneak past the skeleton crew you've got out here so he can eat my legs for dinner and wipe his ass with the 'press' card in my hat!"

Danny sighed again, weary. "Come on, Piper, it's not that dangerous just outside the walls. There's plenty of burnt out husks. Just… Wait near the statue, maybe? Or crawl up in one of the buildings overlooking the entrance? Y'know, don't go far, I just… I'm sure… I-I, look, I don't know, Piper, I just know I can't let you in." A pause. Static. "I'm just doing my job."

Hearing those words again- just doing my job- made Piper almost forget about the pain in her hand, tempting her to take a swing at the callbox. Reason found her first and stopped that self destructive pain-train before it left the station. Piper pressed her fist to her hand, running her thumb along the knuckles as she turned and began to pace the concrete yard in front of the security gate. A slew of profanity and colorful insults rushed through her mind.

When Piper tired of pacing, she sat on the steps below the oxidized baseball player, eternally posed to take the world on with nothing more than his copper swatter. "Don't think you can bust me in, can ya fella?" Piper whispered. The copper giant remained silent. Piper sighed and rested her chin on her knee. "Yeah… Didn't think so…"

By the time the evening changing-of-the-guard came around, it had started to rain. Piper sought shelter under the western walkway, within earshot of the callbox. Holes in the tarp and floor above meant that it was hardly weatherproof, but it was better than soaking out in the open like some sullen alleycat. She tried to talk to the guards that passed her, plead and maybe scream a word or two, but they'd all given her the cold shoulder. Some ignored her sternly, with a stiff mustached upper lip; the Diamond City Security special. Others at least gave her a sympathetic glance, but were sworn to their duty.

As the day guards made their way inside, Piper considered just making a dash for it. Run for the door, clamber her way in. Security was tight, but not quick. Once she was in, it'd be a lot harder for them to root her out… Though they'd done it once before. All the same, if it meant being a pain in their ass, Piper could revel in that alone. She crept her way up to the open security gate, getting ready for the incoming jaunt, when Nat was escorted outside. Seeing her beyond the walls of the city made Piper's heart skip a beat. Danny Sullivan was with her.

They're kicking her out too. Piper thought, too stunned at first to be enraged. The short walk out into the rain toward Nat and Sullivan gave her just enough time to find her anger, however. Anger, and fear. "Danny Sullivan, don't you DARE think about putting my sister out here!" Piper screamed as she stormed toward the two. Danny's eyes fell on her like a radstag in a spotlight.

"No Piper, it-"

"Don't you DARE!" Piper howled. "You wanna punish me for having the fuckin' balls to ask the hard questions that's fine! But Nat didn't do anything I didn't ask her to!"
Nat, who was holding a small knapsack in her arms, tried to speak up. "No, Piper, it-"

Piper would hear none of it. She was on Danny, jabbing a finger with the velocity of a rocket into the padded catcher's chest plate that passed for DC security armor- poking right in the middle of that white painted diamond. "Nat's a kid! A fuckin' kid, Danny! I knew McDonoug was a heartless bastard but this!? First ghouls, then the press, now fucking children? How can you work for that monster, Danny, how can ANY of you do the bidding of that-"

"Piper!" Nat screamed, almost in time with a distant crack of thunder.

Piper choked on the next collection of raging insults she'd had in the pipeline, stumbling verbally as she looked briefly from Danny, to Nat, to Danny again, then at last to Nat. Danny Sullivan was red in the face, a look of shame, frustration, and a smidge of anger on him. He stayed quiet, resting his hands behind his back, though he found it difficult to look either of them in the eyes.

"... Nat, they can't kick you out." Piper said, her voice breaking more than she'd hope it would. "We'll build a damn ladder over the wall if we have to, but they- You can't be out here, Nat, it's not safe-"

"Piper." Nat said, her voice much calmer than her sisters. "Shut up a sec. They're not kicking me out."

The relief brought a shudder through Piper. She wanted to remain composed, wanted to remain angry and threatening- especially in front of Danny- but the relief from those words shattered what resistance there was in Piper Wright. She doubled over with a small sob of relief. "Oh-" Was all she could manage to say.

Nat reached out, adjusting Piper's hat on her head so that it blocked a bit more of the rain. "... I had an idea." She held out the knapsack to Piper.

Piper, confused, took it. She undid the rope bundling, glancing inside. Fancy Lad snack cakes, a Nuka Cola, a canteen, a box of 10mm, a to-go box of Takahashi's noodles. Enough for a day, maybe two, of travel. Plus, a bundle of their emergency caps. Didn't amount to more than fifty, which could hardly get you dinner half the time, but hey; selling newspapers wasn't exactly lucrative, especially when you gave them out for free half the time. "You… Had an idea?"

Nat nodded, pulling her hood a little tighter to try to shut out the rain. She glanced up to Danny, but Danny still found he couldn't quite look either solidly in the face. She shrugged, looking back to her sister. "Nick Valentine has gone missing. Been a few days now, according to Ms. Perkins."

The news struck Piper, though not because she was necessarily close to Diamond City's synth detective. It struck her because of how unrelated it seemed to be from her present dire straits. "Wh… Ellie Perkins? Nick's assistant reported him missing? He leaves on cases for long stretches sometimes, right? Maybe he just- Wait, Nat, what the hell does this have to do with anything?"

Nat put her hands on her hips, a hint of pride creeping on her face. "Nick's a beloved member of the community, Piper. Mayor McDonough's got enough folk clambering up the stands to bust down his office door- even Mrs. Hawthorne wants to bend his ear off for them giving you the boot- but he's digging his heels in. Maybe you could wait out here, sure, maybe in a few days he'll come to his senses. But… What if you came back with a beloved member of the community? Not only would Danny have to let you in-"

Danny cut in. "What? I don't have any authority to- I don't know if I would-"

Nat talked over him as if he wasn't there. "-but if you came back with Nick Valentine, having rescued him from a bunch of gangsters, you'd be marched in a hero. A total one-eighty on the muckraker spin McDonough's trying to paint you with." Nat said his name- McDonough- with that same spit of vinegar Piper found familiar.

She's becoming so much like me, Piper thought with pride and horror. One day, not too long from now, Piper felt it entirely possible it'd be both her and her sister banging on Diamond City's walls, screeching about injustice. "Wait-" Piper waved a hand. "What do you mean gangsters?"

Nat lost a little bit of that sparkle. "That's the uh… Tough part. Ms. Perkins said that the last case Mr. Valentine was working on was a disappearance centered around some guy named Skinny Malone."

The name didn't ring any bells for Piper. "So… Nick's looking for a guy who calls himself 'Skinny Malone'?"

Nat shook her head, waving away a look of confusion. "No- No, some guy's daughter was kidnapped and Mr. Valentine thought Skinny Malone might be responsible. Skinny Malone's the gangster in question. Ms. Perkins said that Mr. Valentine had tracked them to a hideout in Park Street Station."

Park Street Station. Piper mapped that out in her head; it wasn't really too far at all. Though, even a small jaunt east in Boston could be a death sentence. Really, just standing outside the walls of Diamond City for too long was a death sentence. Oh, who was she kidding… Even being in Diamond City wasn't safe anymore. "Okaaaay… So, what, I'm just gonna go in there and talk to 'em?"

Nat's confidence dropped another bar or two. "... Well- They probably won't be all that chatty…"

"Right," Piper slowly started to nod her head. "So instead I go in… What, guns blazing? Muckraker kicks in the door with her humble ten-millimeter, firing wildly at gangsters while she unbinds the gumshoe they have gagged conveniently near the front door? Sounds good for a Silver Shroud broadcast maybe, but…"

Nat began to frown in earnest. "What other options are there, Piper? You can't stay out here. Even if you get back inside, McDonough's gonna have it out for you. It's… Pretty messy in there, after what we printed. I think I've put a paper in the hands of everyone in Diamond City. Even folk from the Upper Stands are making their way down for a copy- that's how much we kicked the hornet's nest."

Now THAT would have been a sight; Piper was sad to have missed it, watching Malcolm Latimer actually dirty his spit-shined shoes on the main street to get a copy of HER paper. Piper placed a hand on the back of her neck, starting to pace. "... Shit."

"Yeah…" Nat nodded. "Yeah, that's kinda the long and short of it…"

Piper looked east, at the ailing corporate towers to the enterprises who's colors faded to rain, to rust, to time itself. She imagined herself perishing under their canopies of metal and glass, being ripped apart by mutated hounds or shot to pieces by tweaked-out raiders. It wasn't a hard image to conjure. But what other options are there? Besides that, Nick Valentine might have been in trouble. Piper wasn't exactly sharing drinks with the guy- not that Nick could even have a drink- but he was one of the good ones in Diamond City.

She sighed with resignation. "... Ok, listen Danny. If anything happens to me- Ow!"

Piper was cut short by a sharp pain on her thigh. She looked down to see Nat scowling up at her, fingers posed for another fresh pinching. "Don't! Don't even go there, Piper! You're gonna be fine, so don't even start in on that 'if I don't make it' bologna. Just… Go and save Mr. Valentine and come back a hero."

Piper furrowed her brow, speaking in a mocking tone. "Oh yeah, just go and do it. Just stroll over and ham it up like I'm the Mistress of Mystery."

"Yeah," Nat gave Piper a playful punch in the leg. "Just do it already, quit jabbering."

Piper pulled Nat in, knuckling the top of her head. "I'll show you jabbering-" But they both had run out of steam to squabble. Sisterly teasing turned into a worried embrace. Piper held Nat close. Nat dug her face into Piper's coat, something she did often when she didn't want anyone to see that she was crying. Piper often forgot that Nat was, in the end, still just a kid. She ran her hands through Nat's ratnest of hair, wondering if this would be the last time-

No, Piper scolded. No, Nat's right. Can't think like that. No finality, none of that 'last hug' malarky. Just… Go in. Save Valentine. Easy breezy… She and Nat separated after a time. Piper bent down to one knee, giving her sister a kiss on the forehead. "Keep the printing press hot, ok?"

Nat gave a small, playful salute. "Every trader that steps in through the gate is leaving with a copy of the Synthetic Truth, even if I have to jam it in their back pocket before they go."

The mortified look on Danny Sulivan's face at the thought of Nat spreading Piper's recent article like wildfire made her all the more proud of her little sister. She ran a hand through Nat's hair again, finding that no amount of scrungling could make it look any worse than it already did. "That's my Nat…" Rising back to stand- letting go of Nat- was harder than Piper thought it'd be. She looked out toward the eastern road, allowing a deep inhale. She reached into her coat, laying her fingers on the grip of her pistol. "Ok… Time to go play noir in the big bad city."

Nat smiled with a pride so radiant that Piper wondered if the entire Wright bloodline could feel it. "You've got this!" Nat popped her thumb up, mimicking the prose of Vault-Tec's advertising campaigns.

Piper snorted a laugh. "Dork… Yeah, I've got this." She said, turning her head back to stare at the corpses of those rusting titan's towers, soaking in the rain.

I'm so dead.