The body count was high. Danny Sullivan was still counting the number. Someone else was counting the raiders who had died. Anyone still moving was to be ignored and counted as “injured”. The healthier ones were being arrested, with little hope of walking out of Diamond City. Scavengers had already moved in and were picking the corpses clean of anything they had on them. Even spent ammo was a commodity to them. Attacks on cities were pay days for scavengers, and an attack like this one will keep most of the scavengers in the Commonwealth fed for weeks. Longer once they start killing each other for loot.
Piper followed Danny Sullivan from one spot to the next. He normally tolerated her for these trips as long as she didn’t get in anyone’s way with questions. She wanted to pepper everyone with questions, but she knew that she would get a better story if she was patient and kept to her end of the deal. She would also get a list of names of all the injured and killed guards for her to publish in a special edition. She always lost money with those special editions, but it was important to remember the brave people who died protecting Diamond City.
They entered another sick room. Piper was disgusted by the fact that Mayor McDonough refused to let any of the injured guards into the city. She wanted to write about that, show the city how he was willing to give second rate care to the people who protect the city, but she knew where that would lead to.
Danny was given information about this particular sick room. How many people had gotten healthy enough to get up and walk to a holding area where Dr Sun would give them a clean bill of health, or orders to continue their recovery? Then Danny would give them orders on what to do after that. These rounds were mostly for him to ensure he wasn’t needed for any unique orders.
“What about that bed?” he asked pointing to a guard laying on a sleeping mat. “What happened to the civilian who helped us?”
“Orders from the mayor,” the guard said, “only members of the Diamond City guard are to have beds until further notice.”
“Are you saying that our mayor couldn’t show enough gratitude to spare so much as a single bed…?” Piper began.
“Piper!” Danny shouted.
“Where is the gratitude for that?”
“Piper!” Danny called again, this time putting his hands on her shoulders. “You have to stop. You can’t harass the Diamond City guards for doing their job.”
She came to herself; Danny was right, she was yelling at the wrong person. She should go to the mayor, demand an interview, ask him why he would think that proper gratitude was throwing someone out into the street. But he would give her a bullshit line, and then tonight X6 would show up in her house and tell her that Nate didn’t appreciate what she did and that she needed to stop. Then there would be no story about McDonough’s corruption, again.
“You’re right, Danny,” she responded. “I will try to behave.”
“I’m sorry, Piper, but you’ve been saying that too many times today. I can’t have the guards worried about your outbursts. I will have to ask you to go home. I’ll give you whatever interviews you want after I’m done here, but you can’t get in the way.”
Piper’s mouth hung open; she was being turned away by Danny. She knew he normally liked her inventive ways to get to the truth, but he was right. He couldn’t afford to second guess himself, and the guards couldn’t afford to find themselves getting yelled at for following orders. Her fight was with the mayor, and she needed to remember that.
“I don’t like it,” she argued, “but I guess that’s what I get. Can I at least have the name of the civilian who helped out? Maybe I can do a piece on them while waiting for the bigger story.”
Danny let go of Piper’s shoulders and let himself relax a bit. “It’s that freelancer we’ve been seeing a lot. She’s friends with some of the guard, but I don’t know her personally. Hey, Maguire, do you remember the name of that woman Lucas is always hanging around?”
“You mean Polly? The woman who runs Choice Chops?” Maguire responded.
“No, the one who helped out with the fight. I don’t remember her name and Piper wants to know it.”
Maguire looked like he had to think about it for a moment. “Really sweet woman, I kinda was hoping there was something between her and Lucas. She was always smiling all the time. Maryanne, I think.”
The name struck Piper. “Are you talking about Marian Halcombe?”
“Is that the name of the bodyguard who’s always bringing people to Valentine’s office? Yeah, I’m pretty sure it was her.”
Piper would have recognized Marian Halcombe if she was laying out in the street. She didn’t see that spy’s body, meaning she must not have been as injured as she pretended. Probably got up and wandered off to make a report to her chain of command.
“Thank you,” Piper said. “I’ll let you get back to your work. And sorry about my behavior, Danny.”
“It’s okay, Piper. We are all stressed right now. No one saw this coming. If you want to do a private interview later, I’m willing to schedule one with you.”
“I’ll take that into consideration. We can set it up after you send me that list of names.” Piper turned and left the sick room.
She needed to find Halcombe. She needed to catch her in the act. Danny may not have seen the fight coming, but Halcombe must have. It was the silver bullet she needed to prove that she was a spy. Something that could stick in a good story and convince the city to keep her out. Piper thought about it for a moment.
Halcombe was either a really good spy or a really bad one. Her movements around Diamond City were painfully predictable. Every time Piper followed her around, she seemed oblivious to her presence. Either she actually didn’t know Piper was there, or she knew and didn’t care. As her relationship with Nick grew stronger, she became even more predictable, but she did go to some places on her own every visit usually without Nick.
Piper went to the room that was set up in the corner between two dilapidated buildings. “Is this building safe to enter? A past time of the Commonwealth,” she muttered to herself as she entered the room.
She knew about this room for years, as well as anyone who spent any time outside of The Wall did. It was a room that was set up when the ghouls were first kicked out of Diamond City. A way for some of them to have a safe place until they figured out what to do. Kent Connelly stayed the longest, until Mayor Hancock found him one day. Rumor had it that Kent was afraid of leaving the room and was staving when Hancock found him. Piper didn’t know how true that story was, but Connelly was now safely in Goodneighbor, not a skeleton in this room.
Ever since Connelly left, the room had been a safe haven for anyone who needed a place to stay and couldn’t or wouldn’t stay in Diamond city. Halcombe was its most recent resident. The room looked lived it with small items that people had left over the years. Things that people didn’t mind returning to, but did mind carry around. Food and drinks were sitting on the shelves next to the stove.
The journalist looked around. There was now a first aid kit screwed to the inside of the door. Piper opened it up and found three stimpaks, a radaway, and a bottle of rad-x. She wondered if this was the addition Halcombe made to the room. There was nothing else that hinted that Halcombe was ever there. No trash, no radio, no possessions. Nothing that Piper could use.
Of course, she wouldn’t call her chain of command from this room. It was too easy for someone to overhear her. Piper had even listened outside the room to see if she could overhear some clues. Sometimes, it was Marian yelling incoherent things like a mad woman. Why “they” couldn’t have just left her alone all this time. Why “they” had to keep her from being happy. Usually, she was quiet, and Piper just heard noises of someone living their life.
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She wasn’t going to get anything from this room today. She needed to know where Halcombe would report to her supervisor. Normally, she stayed in this room, but she was visiting Nick’s office every visit now. A fact that grated on Piper. The man was feeding his enemy and acted like he didn’t know it.
He seemed happy when he was around her, which made it even sadder knowing that one of the pictures Nate gave Piper was Holcombe’s family in full Brotherhood of Steel uniform. Piper wanted to tell Nick this, but she had to follow Nate’s rules, and she couldn’t show Nick the picture.
Holcombe wasn’t even her real name. Piper realized that as she was reading the book Nate gave her. It was the name of the ugly sister in the obscure book “Woman in White”. Piper wasn’t sure if Marian would have matched her name sake’s description, but she did have the unibrow and facial hair that was described in the book. Artists weren’t going to lovingly draw her any time soon.
If Piper could prove to Nick that he was sleeping with the enemy, he would surely stop. Maybe he would even help her get some evidence against Halcombe to write a really good take down piece. The type that would get Halcombe leaving the entire Commonwealth with as much disgrace as any member of the Brotherhood of Steel deserved. Even Danse couldn’t leave Sanctuary without having at least one civilian blaming him for everything the group did in its history, and he married Nate.
The other location Halcombe always went to was the library. She probably did like books, she talked about them enough that no one would be suspicious of her frequent visits to that building. Which would make it the perfect place to hide something that would get her in trouble, but she needed to visit often.
Piper left the room and headed towards the building. She could hear gun shots nearby, probably another fight between two hostile factions. The air propellent sounds made Piper believe one side must have been the Mechanist’s robots. She wondered idly if the other side was the Rust Devils. The explosion she heard proved her wrong, that was a Super Mutant Suicider.
She didn’t care about those fights; they happened all the time around that building. Some of the scavengers would leave off looting the bodies outside Diamond City to get parts from the robots. Today was a good day for those vultures.
Piper pressed the intercom button at the side entrance of the library and gave the painfully easy to guess code the last mayor of Boston used. The intercom greeted the mayor, and Piper let herself in.
The library was as quiet as the old authors described them. She couldn’t hear any voices, not even Holcombe’s. She couldn’t hear a radio either. Maybe the spy was in a different part of the building. It would be silly trying to keep a secret where anyone could walk in on you.
Piper turned left and walked past the robots patrolling the library. They were busy restacking the books, but she knew they would go aggressive if there was any sign of danger in the library. They mostly ignored her, and she mostly ignored them as she walked to where the corpses of the librarians rotted. Piper knew each of them personally and was saddened when they had died protecting the knowledge that existed in the building. Nate did a good job making sure they did not die in vain.
The door to the back room was closed. Piper opened it, and saw the last of the librarians, but no Halcombe. She checked the supply closet, and no one was there. She decided that Halcombe may be in a different part of the library. She would have the entire building to herself at this time. It was unlikely that anyone who could read would feel the need to check out a book at this moment. Piper would just have to search the whole building. She had done more tedious work before.
When she got to the room that lead to the exit, she saw Holcombe’s backpack. It was to the right of the door, but it wasn’t set carefully. It was laying on its side, and at a strange angle, like someone haphazardly tossed it there. No one would notice if it was at a slightly different angle.
Piper picked up the bag and took it to a table. She needed to be fast. Halcombe was careful with her backpack. She claimed it was everything she owned. Since the Brotherhood of Steel discouraged ownership of possessions, that may be a truth or a half truth. Either way, she would be coming back for it.
The journalist already had an idea of where everything was from the last time she went through the backpack. But then, she wanted to find out what was on the other end of the chain she saw months ago in the Dugout Inn. Now, she wanted all the secrets this bag can tell her.
Five refreshing beverages. Melons, gourds, and other uncooked food. Didn’t this woman know how to cook? Piper thought about taking some of the tatos and carrots to make soup for Halcombe, until she realized there weren’t any dirty water. In fact, most of the food Piper found was stuff she could have scavenged in the wasteland. Halcombe knew how to play up the spy game.
There was a copy of a book. Piper looked at the title, “The Thin Man”. What a weird title. Didn’t this woman know the books everyone read like “All the President’s Men” or “Great Expectations”?
She set the book aside and found another one. This one had a blue cover and a cloth bookmark connected to the spine. It looked like a diary or journal of some kind. She opened it up and saw a series of names on the left side of the page, and dates on the right. The first name was written in an overly careful handwriting, but the letters didn’t look right. They looked more lines from a terminal written by a human. None of the lines in a single letter connected, making it hard for Piper to read, but if she read slowly and carefully she was able to make the words out. The first name was Grace Unknown with a date of 24 November 2063.
The next name and was Peter Monroe, May 2066. There were two more names and dates in there until suddenly there were three names on 24 May 2069. Then there was a steady stream of names and dates. Often times, there would be a series of names to each date, sometimes, there would be as few as one or two names for each month. But it looked like there was barely a month that went by without a name written down.
The handwriting gradually changed with each date as well. What started out as a childish imitation of a terminal entry, became more sophisticated. Later, the writing became loopy, as if the writer was trying to practice script. The names became harder to read again, but Piper was able to decipher them.
“What are you doing?” She heard a familiar deep voice say.
She looked up and saw Nick glaring at her. He hadn’t spoken to her since he found her in his office the other day. She was waiting until he calmed down to apologize to him and hopefully make it up to him.
“Look!” she told him “it’s a hit list. This is probably the list of names of everyone she killed. She must have been doing this for a long time. But this is what I need, I can write the article on her, I can prove that she is a member of the Brotherhood of Steel!”
“Piper, stop! “Listen to yourself. You’re going from investigative reporter to conspiracy theorist. Everything you’re finding now is evidence to a conclusion you already drew.”
“No, I know what she is, I have the evidence, I just…I can’t share it.”
Nick walked towards her slowly, stopping several feet away from her. “Piper, this isn’t you. You’re a good reporter, but you’re letting yourself get carried away by this pet project of yours. Let it go, Marian isn’t your enemy.”
The lies Marian had told, the elaborate stories, the clues that she flaunted in everyone’s faces knowing that no one suspected that welcoming smile and those friendly waves. Piper had the evidence; she knew what Marian is. “What about those holotags? How do you explain those?”
“I know what Ms. Halcombe is. She told me herself. MacCready told me about the tags, they belonged to her late brother. Apparently, they were close, and he died when she was still a kid.”
The name in the book, it fit. But it shouldn’t. “Okay, maybe that wasn’t enough, but I know what she is. I can get her out of here, we’ll be safe from her as soon as I write that story on her. I have everything I need to write the story.”
“Piper,” Nick responded. The seriousness in his voice got her attention. He almost never sounded that serious, or that sad. “She’s dying.”
“What?”
“She’s at my house right now, she hasn’t woken up. She got badly injured helping defend the city, but the mayor won’t let her have anything stronger than a med-x to save her. He was even insisting she should be thrown out when I went to see her. She probably won’t survive the night.”
Piper looked down at the book in her hands. The problem with her job was that she worked with the court of public opinion and the public are too easily swayed. Piper had enough time to write one article if she wanted to have it printed and distributed by the next morning. If she wrote about Halcombe being a hero and she lived, the public would love her, and it would be ten times as hard for Piper to get her thrown out of Diamond City. If she wrote about Halcombe being a spy and she died from her injuries, Piper would be raked over the coals by her adoring public. Everyone loved a dead hero, and that was what Halcombe may be.
“I don’t believe this,” Piper laughed. “I can’t believe this.”
“Piper,” Nick said quietly.
“No! This is too much!” She yelled at him. The stress of not having a story for months on end. The idea that Nick was sleeping with someone who would slit his throat and was still protecting her from Piper despite their history. Tears were welling up in her eyes as she faced him. “I have been trying for months! I have been limping by on nothing more than fluff pieces. I can barely feed my kid sister, and now you are defending your Brotherhood Bitch!” Piper threw the book at Nick, it bounced off his chest and fell to the floor. He looked at her impassively before bending down and picking it up. “I can’t do this anymore. If you want to let her kill you, fine! But that’s not going to stop me from protecting Diamond City from her.”
“She’s not your enemy,” Nick said.
“FUCK YOU!” Piper screamed before walking past him and out of the library. He could have his bitch kill him if he wanted, Piper would still be able to protect the city. She would start a story on the mayor to get X6’s attention, let him know she needed Nate. Nate was good at helping get problems out of the Commonwealth, and Marian Halcombe was a problem that needed to be removed.