Fallout: New Division

Piper sat at her old rusty workbench table covered in old newsprint with Headlines about The Wonderer scattered through the pile slowly building around the surface of the table. Her darkened, sunkened, exhausted eyes reflected the soft glow of the candle light as it danced to its melted wax as it dripped over a few of the browning paper. The dust lay stilled and Cloudy around the room. Piper had noticed that she was out of catfood.

Her cat, Benji mewed somewhere in the dark reminding her that she needed to, at some point, make her way to Diamond City Market Square to buy more food. Piper rubbed her burgandy painted digits against the corners of her temple as she looked down at the notepad in front of her. On it, scribbles of notes, names, and dates. She groaned in disinterest as she struggled to find the words for next week's Newspaper. Benji stretched across the ground and jumped onto the table, his collar pinging as it bounced against his grey frame. He purred into a yawn and faced the candle on the corner, addressing it's distance from him and the fire in a disinterested way before flicking his tail at it and walking over to Piper and her frustrated frame.

“Hi Benji.” She said half-heartedly as she looked up from her networth regretting for a moment taking extra time earlier yesterday to paint on the side of the City’s wall with her baby sister. “You hungry?” She asked, knowing the answer. She gave her kitty a quick pet followed by a soft stroke along it's back before kicking her chair back against the scattered newsprint that had fallen on the old wood and steal floor beneath her feet. The cat mewed in delight as she rose from the chair.

Piper reached for her leather shoulder bag and flung it over her shoulder before unlatching the buckle and flipping the cracked leather sleeve. She pulled it open and walked back to the table where Benji was sitting, Piper scooped him up and placed him in her bag. He poked his head out as Piper closed the flap, securing him in her bag. She checked on the accessory ring looped on the side of her bag and gave Benji a pat on his head noting the teal key safely secured underneath his chin.

“Ready to go?” She asked before clicking her steel-toed combat boots together and pulling herself to the front of her tin can apartment.

The heavy metal door groaned as Piper pushed it open, wincing at the familiar screech of rust against rust. Diamond City's afternoon light hit her like a slap after hours hunched over her desk in the dim apartment. She squinted, adjusting the strap of her bag as Benji's whiskers twitched against the sudden brightness.

The marketplace buzzed with its usual chaos—traders hawking their wares, children weaving between the stalls, and the ever-present hum of conversation that made Diamond City feel alive despite the wasteland surrounding it. Piper normally thrived in this atmosphere, always ready to eavesdrop on a conversation that might lead to her next story. Today, though, the noise felt overwhelming.

"Piper! There you are!"

She turned to see Nat jogging toward her, dirt streaked across her cheek and that mischievous grin that usually meant trouble. At thirteen, Piper's little sister had already mastered the art of finding adventure in the most mundane places.

"Hey, Nat. Shouldn't you be helping Myrna with inventory?" Piper asked, though she couldn't help but smile at her sister's boundless energy.

"Already finished. She said I work too fast and make her nervous." Nat peered curiously at the bag where Benji's gray head poked out. "Taking Benji shopping again?"

"Cat food run," Piper explained, already scanning the market for Polly's shop. "Want to come with?"

Nat fell into step beside her as they navigated through the crowd. "You look terrible, Piper. When's the last time you slept?"

"Thanks for the pep talk," Piper muttered, but she knew Nat was right. The bags under her eyes felt heavier than her messenger bag, and her hands had developed a slight tremor from too much coffee and too little rest.

As they approached Polly's general goods store, Benji suddenly tensed in the bag, his ears flattening against his head. A low growl rumbled from his throat—something Piper had never heard from her usually docile cat.

"What's wrong with him?" Nat whispered.

Piper followed Benji's intense stare across the marketplace. There, near the noodle stand, stood a man in a clean pre-war suit—too clean for anyone who'd been traveling the wasteland. His posture was rigid, mechanical, and when he turned slightly, Piper caught sight of his face.

Perfect. Too perfect.

"Nat," Piper said quietly, her journalist instincts suddenly wide awake for the first time in days. "Do you see that man by Takahashi's stand?"

"The one who looks like he stepped out of a magazine? Yeah, why?"

Piper's mind raced. In a world where everyone bore the scars of radiation, violence, or simply hard living, this man looked like he'd just walked out of a Vault-Tec advertisement. And Benji's reaction... animals had instincts about these things.

"Change of plans," Piper said, gently stroking Benji to calm him while keeping her eyes on the stranger. "We're going to take a little detour first."