The notepad gracefully flew through the air and landed on the desk next to Piper’s terminal. She let out a sigh as she stopped pacing her bedroom and stared at the blank terminal screen waiting for her to type another hard-hitting story. Instead of having a story that would raise awareness and stop all of The Commonwealth in its tracks, she had a series of fluff pieces dutifully waiting their turn.
Damn things weren’t worth the paper they were printed on, and unfortunately, her readership felt the same way. When she printed the big stuff, people always complained to her. “Piper, why don’t you ever write anything nice?” “Piper, why do you have to make everything seem so bad?” But when she gives the public what they think they want; they leave her with nothing but an overstock of papers to feed Nat with.
Piper let out another sigh. Poor Nat, she was barely staying home anymore. Not that Piper could blame her. She had become so stressed with trying to keep Publick Occurrences afloat, that she was only able to communicate with her sister by snapping at her. In return, Nat was coming home from school late because she picked another fight with Sheng Kawolski. Piper didn’t even have the heart to ground her anymore. She deserved it. Nat was just like her.
The “journalist” made her way downstairs from her bedroom. She needed a drink. She wasn’t sure if she could stomach another bottle of Borbrov’s Best, but she didn’t have the caps for a luxury like beer. She just needed to get drunk.
Before she was halfway down, there was a flash of lightning coming from inside her living room. She was ready for a fight. She didn’t know what fluff piece that was trying to look like an article could be offending Nate enough for him to send X6 to her this week, but she was going to stand her ground this time. She couldn’t afford to adjust to him anymore.
“I don’t know what you’re here for,” she announced to X6, “but I don’t have time for it.”
“I’m sorry that you don’t have time for me,” a familiar voice said.
The smiling man came into view as Piper descended the stairs. His strong jaw, his blue eyes, his easy-going manner that just didn’t exist for anyone who was born after the bombs dropped. There was no doubt about it.
“Blue!” Piper squealed in happy surprise. “I can’t believe you’re here!”
“I am very sorry about my absence,” he said as he took her hand and lead her to the couch. “I have been very busy in The Institute. The prior director did leave a mess, no matter how hard he worked to tie up his loose ends before…” Nate went quiet. He was obviously still grieving for Father, even if Piper would argue to anyone else that Father was little more than a monster, it was more complicated for Nate.
“These things take time,” she told him. “But we do all miss you up here. Are you back now? Almost every radio signal is someone calling for you.”
Nate let out a restrained laugh as he sat down on the couch with her. “Yes, I have heard them. I wish I could answer them all and bring nothing but peace to The Commonwealth. Unfortunately, even my best scientists cannot find a way for me to be in two places at once, and teleportation takes more time than you would expect. If I spend too much time outside right now, my enemies will capitalize on my absence, and I will find myself on the surface much more than planned. The best I can do right now is sending out representatives to protect The Commonwealth for me until I am able to protect more than myself, but everybody.”
“You’ve changed,” Piper noted, “you never talked this much before.”
“I know, I normally prefer action to words, but you know as well as I do that sometimes words are needed to create action. Which does bring me to why I am here.” Nate took both of Piper’s hands in his, he looked straight into her eyes as he spoke. “Piper, I need your help. There is a woman who has recently taken up residence here in The Commonwealth. I have been keeping an eye on her the best that I can, and I can tell you, she is dangerous. I need you to help me find out how dangerous. And I want you to smoke her out in the way that you do best.”
“There are a lot of dangerous people who have been moving in,” Piper said. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
“Are you familiar with a woman who poorly disguised herself as a bodyguard?” Nate’s tone dropped as he spoke of this woman who he refused to name.
“Are you talking about Marian Halcombe?” Piper asked, the only person who had moved into The Commonwealth in the past year who fit Nate’s description.
“I know that’s the name she goes by here,” he explained. “But my sources have found that she goes by multiple different names.”
“I know her,” Piper told him. “I’ve been trying to find information on her, but it’s been hard. The only person I am sure knows anything about her is MacCready, and he is as loyal to her as he is to you.”
“I have heard,” Nate sighed. “Poor MacCready, he may be a good and loyal friend, and hell of a shot, but unfortunately, he can be a little too nostalgic, and a little too trusting. That woman is too smart for him and knows how to manipulate someone like him to her own ends.”
Piper was getting excited. After months of getting little information about Marian other than the occasional story about her saving a kitten from a tree, Piper was about to get some real information. No one leaves their entire past unless they are running from something. And no one changes their names as much as she does unless it was something dangerous.
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“I have been looking for everything I can,” Piper explained. “But all I can get is short stories about how she touched someone’s life in one way or another. I can’t find anything solid against her.”
“What if I have?” Nate asked.
“What? Really? Blue! That’s great! That can be what I need? Please, tell me, what do you have! What is she really?”
Nate pulled out an envelope and held it just out of Piper’s reach. “This is everything you need,” he explained. “But it comes with caveats.”
“Name them,” Piper said. This was too much, if the story is as big as she hoped, it could save her home. She could be back on top.
“This is all you need to find out what she is, and write a story that will destroy her,” he told Piper. “You will be the hero of The Commonwealth. The biggest scandal of the decade. A small, innocent wastelander, out to mobilize The Commonwealth and destroy it from the inside. Sound like the kind of story you would like to write?”
“How, Blue? Don’t keep me in suspense.”
“If I give this to you, you will see. Unfortunately, there are some methods I’ve used that could get me in trouble if the greater population found out. Normally I wouldn’t bother using them, for propriety, but she needs to go. So, I have chosen to let the ends justify the means just this once. She is dangerous, just look at how she walks around. Notice how people are almost mindlessly loyal to her. Yafim, Ellie, even Hancock. Smart people who wouldn’t be taken in by a cheap smile, but one look at her eyes, and people just seem to fall in love with her.”
“Nick,” Piper said to herself, thinking of all the sacrifices he had been making for her while arguing he didn’t even like her.
“It’s mostly for Nick that I’m here giving this to you,” Nate explained. “When you look at this, you’ll see how dangerous she is to all of us, but especially to Nick. But, that’s also why you can’t tell anyone that I gave this to you.”
“But that would lend credibility to it all,” Piper argued.
Nate raised a hand to calm her down. “I know, I know. But look at how loyal people are to her. And how many more people who are already loyal to her are entering The Commonwealth each day. If she sees me as a threat, she could mobilize the people who are loyal to her and tear this place apart in a civil war.”
“Just like what she left The Capital Wasteland in,” Piper finished the thought.
“Exactly,” Nate smiled at her, like a teacher who was proud of his student. “She may not act it, but she is a unifying force. The problem is, she is not one to make things better, even if she believes she is. We cannot let her know that someone as powerful as me is a possible danger to her, not yet. We have to weaken her power first.”
Piper thought about what Nate said. Marian’s actions were suspicious. Some of the things she did had no explanation other than she was doing something behind the scenes. Then, it hit Piper, there was something more. She knew how to drive Marian out.
“I promise not to use your name in the article,” Piper told him. “But can I quote you as an anonymous source?”
“Good,” Nate responded. “You can quote me, but if you do you cannot use any of this evidence in your article.”
“I can handle that,” Piper told him. “Once I have the answers, I can find them again.”
“I knew I could depend on you,” Nate said as he handed Piper the envelope.
It was heavier than she expected as she tore into it. Photos, holotapes, even a book. Everything she needed to start her hunt on Marian Halcombe. She picked up the book.
“Woman in White?” she asked Nate.
“Trust me, it’s a clue,” he reassured her.
“If I’m going to do this, I need to focus on it,” Piper said. “I need caps until this is written.”
“I will start an allowance for you,” Nate agreed. “What do you say to five hundred caps a week? And I will see to it that your rent is waived for the rest of the year.”
“I think I know something else that I can do,” Piper said. “But it may get her to leave before the story is written.”
“If she leaves prematurely, I will forward you enough caps to compensate any loss of sales. We’ll pretend like the article would sell twice as well as The Synthetic Truth.”
“It’s a deal,” Piper said.
Nate stood up, “I would love to stay, and even go on an adventure with you, but unfortunately, politics makes it dangerous for me to be away from home for more than a few minutes. I will visit as soon as I can. Until then, I do look forward to your next article, as always.”
With that, Nate flashed away, leaving Piper with everything he gave her. She was excited and couldn’t wait to see what was on the holotapes. She wanted all the information at once, unwilling to restrain herself. The book can wait, everything else was going to give her what she needed on Marian.
She flipped through the pictures. One looked like Marian, and MacCready, both of them looked so young. Marian looked more MacCready’s age, and MacCready looked close to Nat’s age than the adult that he is. They both sported guns that looked like trash compared to what they carry now. Neither seemed to know they were being photographed. Both of them look too serious for their age. Marian looked too serious. Her eyes seemed unfocused, like she was more concerned with the horizon than what was in front of her. Like she didn’t care about what they were doing. She didn’t have her jacket, but tattered brahmin hide. There was a chain, sticking out of her pocket, Piper had seemed a chain like that before.
Another picture showed Marian without a gun looking about the age she currently was. She was posing with a man carrying an assault rifle. She was smiling too big in this picture. Looking like she was nothing more than a trophy for the man who had his arm around her waist. The background was what drew her attention. People wearing tattered cloth with collars were in the background, while others stared down at them. She thought she even saw what looked like two women exchanging money in the background.
The third picture was what really drew her attention. Marian wasn’t in this one. It was four adults, three men, and a woman. Two of the men were about the same age, while the other man and the woman were about the same age as each other, but much older than the first two. They looked like they were working, but there was no mistaking what she was looking at, they were a family. They looked similar enough to tell. But the woman, and the youngest man, they had a face that was familiar. They looked almost exactly like Marian. The other two had features like hers. The older man had her eyes, the other one had small similarities, but took after the older man more. There was no question what she was looking at. They couldn’t be any more obvious.
Piper had to get Marian out of the Commonwealth at all costs. Even if she had to kill that spy herself, she was going to protect The Commonwealth, Nick, and Blue. Marian was too dangerous.