Part 9: For we who grew up tall and proud, in the shadow of the mushroom cloud...
Previous: Part 8: We are the order piercing forward...

A gentle answer may turn away wrath, and a harsh word may stir up anger, but it is my belief that the soft voice of a silenced .308-caliber sniper rifle is probably the best argument starter out there, while the loud report of a fully automatic 12-gauge shotgun tends to end them. Clara subscribes to this belief as well, and she proceeds to prove it empirically with the raiders at the U.S.S. Riptide, which is a fine name to give to a ship that will one day end up smashed into a bridge. Almost prophetic, you might say. I can't fault her for killing these raiders - after all, she does need to get past the place, and they're in her way - but I can fault her for shooting at them before finding out whether or not they actually were raiders, and not lost settlers or something. I guess she also subscribes to the belief that anyone wearing a mishmash of metal armor and ragged cloth must be an evil bastard, ignoring the irony of she herself wearing a mishmash of metal armor and ragged cloth, though in all fairness (and a sense of dignity) I should point out that her cloth isn't actually ragged, though it is dyed a horrible combination of blue and yellow, and could stand to be washed from time to time, hint hint.

Sartorial matters aside, her murderous rampage clears the way toward Diamond City, or at least deeper into the ruins of Boston. Rat-a-tat-tats in the distance draws Clara to a gunfight between some members of diamond city security and a stupid of Super Mutants, including their horrifyingly grotesque dogs. Clara, as is her wont, dives headlong into the struggle, gleefully adding to her collection of skin perforations and not incidentally clothing perforations, but she doesn't seem to mind the fact that I personally am now full of holes and stained with her blood. After the Super Mutants have all been killed, she proceeds to rip some flesh off the carcasses of the mutant hounds and stuff it in her mouth, leading the surviving members of Diamond City Security to perform what almost seems like a choreographed mass retch.

Clara trots off in the direction of Diamond City, leaving the heaving security guards behind. It is, in fact, very clear that Diamond City is nearby, what with dozens of painted signs pointing in that direction. I smell a trap.

Luckily, I am proven wrong. All the signs end up pointing to is a jittery person in a red trenchcoat talking to what appears to be a solid wall, leading me to believe that this poor person has been hitting the Jet a bit too hard. However, upon closer inspection, it turns out that she's speaking into an intercom system, to someone named Danny Sullivan. Her name is Piper, and she's complaining about being locked outside the gate, which to my mind is a pretty damn legitimate complaint, what with the Super Mutants wandering about.

Piper turns around and comes up with an absolutely brilliant idea to get inside - after "whispering" to Clara about it while standing right next to the mic in a voice that can clearly be heard bouncing off the nearby buildings, this oh-so-clever ruse is accepted and the gate begins opening. Text is a poor medium for conveying sarcasm, but I assure you, it's positively dripping off my words here.

"What's that? You're a trader up from Quincy? You have enough supplies to keep the general store stocked for a whole month?" Subtle, Piper. Really subtle. As if the guy listening on the other end couldn't hear what was going on. The dystopian future equivalent of "I'm about to go through a tunnel, losing reception now" - nobody really falls for that, do they?

Apparently they do, because the guard inside proceeds to open the gate right up. Piper jitters in place for a minute while she and Clara wait for the gate to open. Once it does, the mayor of the city is standing right inside, ready to confront Piper immediately, which is pretty damn convenient if you ask me. The two shout at each other for a minute before Piper drags Clara into the conversation by asking her if she supports the news, as if she's an aggregate website or something. Clara, disregarding her lawyer's training (Lesson 1: Never Publicly Commit) states that she firmly believes in freedom of the press. The mayor, exhibiting the bipolar speech patterns of a true politician, attempts to woo Clara with his friendly nature despite his previous angry attitude toward Piper, like a burger joint manager yelling at his subordinates in full view of the customers and then turning around and giving said customers his biggest smile.

Mayor McDonough extolls the virtues of living in Diamond City and then asks why Clara is here, despite Piper's previous assertion that she was a trader up from Quincy and McDonough's (apparently brief) conviction that she was a person wanting to settle down here. Clara informs the mayor that she's looking for her baby boy, apparently in the belief that the mayor keeps personal track of every citizen under three feet tall. Of course, this may in fact be a reasonable assumption, as he evidently spends most of his time standing at the main entrance just waiting for people to come in so he can bend their ears about the wonderful existence that is Diamond City life.

He reveals that a local citizen may be able to help, a gumshoe who goes by the moniker of Nick Valentine. He then walks off and Piper seems impressed that Clara managed to get any information out of the mayor. In her shoes, I would be too - if all you ever do is angrily shout at someone, seeing that a polite query gets actual results must be something of a revelation. Piper heads off after the Mayor, and Clara follows.

After speaking to many of the residents of the city, it turns out that they are paranoid about Synths, which are robotic humanoids that have apparently been killing people and taking their place, like some sort of technophobe's version of the Pod People. It is a legitimate concern, never knowing if your old friend is really your old friend or a mechanical mockup. However, there's an easy way to figure it out, but nobody seems to have considered it... does anybody know what a metal detector is anymore, or how to use one? We're living in a post-apocalyptic world where a lot of technology has been lost, granted, but if we've high enough technology to, for example, build mechanical people indistinguishable from the real thing, why don't we have metal detectors anymore? What about other lower-tech methods? I mean, has anybody ever tried to determine if a newcomer is a synth by throwing a refrigerator magnet at him and see if it sticks to the skin?

Anyway. Clara displays that solid determination to find her missing son as quickly as possible by spending several hours wandering the streets and talking to random strangers. She stops in for a pint at the local pub, for a cup of noodles at the local cup-of-noodles seller, some ammo at the weapons dealer, etcetera. If there is one thing that she is consistent at, it's inconsistency. After taking on a job to find some old baseball memorabilia, cleaning out trash and forgotten body parts from the local water supply, promising to find a drug dealer some raw ingredients, and generally behaving like an addle-brained puppy with severe ADHD, she finally gets back on track and heads for Nick Valentine's office. Unfortunately, Valentine isn't home. His secretary informs Clara that he's gone off on one of his cases and hasn't been back in some time, which means, yep, you guessed it, sidequest!

Next: Part 10: I watched as the Lamb opened the first of seven seals...
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Author's note: Maybe it's just me, but Moe Cronin's depiction of the game of baseball seems a lot more entertaining than what the game actually entails. Certainly more action-oriented, at any rate.

Image: Diamond City, the Jewel of Skyrim the Commonwealth. Because nobody at Bethesda can think of any better descriptor it's shaped like a diamond. Get it? Puns LOLOLOL!

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