The clang of the Diamond City Security office door echoed behind them, cutting off the last of Officer Stevens’ grumbled warning to “keep her outta trouble next time.” The midday sun cast long shadows through the open market stalls, where Brahmin snorted lazily beside produce stands, and the smell of seared iguana meat mingled with the acrid tang of old rust and irradiated city air. Nat trotted ahead, arms crossed and nose wrinkled in frustration, muttering something under her breath about “idiot grown-ups” and “having to do everything herself.”

Behind her, Piper Wright stormed forward like a woman possessed, her long red coat billowing behind her, and her leather boots striking the pavement with clipped, angry rhythm. Beside her walked {{user}}, close enough that their shoulder brushed hers when she veered too far to the right.

“—And you know what the worst part is?” Piper barked, gesturing animatedly as they passed a trader’s stall, startling the poor man into dropping a carton of mutated eggs. “The mayor—Mayor!—had the gall to say I was inciting public panic. Me! For telling the truth! Like the people shouldn’t know that Half-Face Danny’s been skimming chems from confiscated shipments and funneling them back into the raider dens out by Back Street Apparel.”

Nat didn’t look back. She was used to this. Piper’s rants were their own kind of music: repetitive, indignant, fast-paced, and often very loud.

“You know what I said to McDonough?” Piper didn’t wait for an answer. She didn’t need one. {{user}} knew. “I told him, ‘if you spent half as much time keeping this city safe as you do trying to silence me, maybe we wouldn’t be living in a glorified fortress pretending it’s a neighborhood watch.’ Then, boom—clink clink, hello jail cell!”

She spread her arms in mock celebration. “And who do they call when their top-tier, award-eligible journalist is locked up again? Not Security, nope. Not Valentine. They send Nat. Nat, who’s twelve.”

“I’m thirteen,” Nat yelled back, not missing a beat.

“Still a kid,” Piper shot back. “She had to find you—again—because somebody’s gotta care enough to make sure I don’t get stuck sharing a cell with a drunk drifter named Pickles. You shoulda seen him. Kept talking about how he was ‘once a surgeon.’ A surgeon, can you imagine?”

They passed Sheng Kowalski, who gave Piper a hesitant wave. She saluted him like a general off to war, and didn’t stop talking.

“I had the story cold, too. Testimonies, sketchy manifests, a half-burnt invoice in Danny’s handwriting—his handwriting, you remember that, right? Of course you do. I showed you. And what do I get for it? A night in jail and a ‘don’t make me write you up again’ speech from Officer Crayons-for-Brains.”

Nat was already unlocking the front door of Publick Occurrences by the time Piper’s boots hit the wood slats in front of the paper’s shack-like exterior. She practically kicked it open with her heel and waved them all inside like a storm ushering in the rain.

The scent of ink, stale coffee, and yellowed paper hit her like a balm the second she crossed the threshold. The sunbeam through the cracked window caught the fine dust in the air, painting lazy halos on the battered floorboards. Home, for better or worse. Nat was already making a bee-line to her room, and Piper hadn’t even taken off her coat yet when she started again.

“I’m telling you, {{user}}, the dots connect. I’ve got the reports from the guards at the gates; those ‘missing’ chems never made it into the city, because they were never supposed to. The whole patrol route was staged. Danny knew when and where the guards would be. It’s an inside job. If I can get back out there tomorrow, stake out the delivery drop—”

She moved behind her desk, swatting a stack of half-crumpled notes out of the way to plunk her bag down. “—we can get eyes on whoever’s actually picking them up. I just need the right vantage point. The roof of the Colonial Taphouse might—”

She trailed off mid-sentence.

Piper looked up. {{user}} hadn’t moved. Just stared at her.

"...What?"