(Author's Note: With as many places as Preston sends us on missions, he has to have maps he updates while at Sanctuary.)

"Hey!" The former vault dweller is roused from a dead sleep by one of the settlers on night sentry duty. "Wake up!"

The groggy young woman quickly sits up in bed, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. "What's wrong?"

"Somebody came running in wounded! They said their camp was being attacked by Raiders!"

She throws her feet over the side of her refurbished bed, reaching over to the nightstand for her Pip-Boy. "Where is it? Did they say?"

"He said it was a fire pit in a junkyard near a bunch of trees on a rocky hill."

She has an internal fit over how vague the directions are, but drags herself out of bed with a solution in mind. "Can you wake up Preston and tell him I need to use his maps."

The man hurries out of her house.

Having found two possible places the wounded traveler could have been referring to, the Sole Survivor sets out to do what she does best, in the dead of night. With most of her allies either asleep or in an induced stupor of some kind, Nick obliges her request to go traveling.

Under a moonless sky, a lone figure kneels on the roof of the junkyard "office", hunting rifle in one hand, a lit cigarette in the other. He scrutinizes the two running toward the yard, guns blazing, with a carefully trained eye. Deciding the new arrival in the Silver Shroud hat and coat is indeed his target, he grounds out his stub of a cigarette, taking his firearm in hand.

the Sole Survivor and Nick stop dead in their tracks, not expecting the dead silence.

"Where's the shooting," she wonders, keeping her gun ready. "And the Raiders?"

"They must have left, which means we got here too late." His glowing, yellow eyes take in the surroundings at lightning speeds, trying to spot something out of place. "There's a fire behind that stack of cars." He gesture with a nod.

"Then they're still here," the young woman says.

They hurry towards the dying embers of a cooking fire, finding only one other human from the supposed raid, now dead.

Nick takes a knee beside the body, putting his non-metallic hand on the deceased man's forehead. "He's been dead a few hours. A single gunshot to the head."

"But it took us less than an hour to get here, and Raiders aren't than precise."

"The Gunners are." The ominous glowing-eye look from under the brim of his battered hat reaffirms her creeping suspicions.

"Then it is an ambush."

A single shot from above catches her in the left leg. She falls to the ground, holding tightly to her shin. The crippled young woman orders Nick to run, which he does after the second shot grazes his shoulder.

The Vaultee gets back to her feet as quick as she can, squinting hard in the direction of the gunshots. Outlined in the bright green graphics of her V.A.T.S is a figure perched on the roof of a disheveled office lining up another shot in slow motion.

The shot catches her in the shoulder, sending her staggering back a few steps.

She quickly injects herself with a Stimpak, sprinting toward the building.

The shooter slips his rifle onto his back, leaping from the rooftop. He makes to run out of the cluttered junkyard, but her Synth companion jumps from the nearby shadows, tackling him to the ground. He wrenches an arm behind his back, sitting on his legs.

The costumed woman rushes toward the now pinned figure, angry. "THIS," She gives him a swift kick in the side for emphasis. "Is for shooting me in the leg. And THIS," she kicks him in the same spot. "Is for shooting me in the arm."

The shooter grits his teeth against the pain.

"You finished," the detective asks in his "I don't entirely disapprove" tone.

The Sole Survivor takes a deep breath, calming her temper. "Yeah." As the detective drags him off the ground, it dawns on her where she's seen him before. "Hey! You're the angry, bearded guy arguing with the other two men in the Third Rail."

The familiarity of her face comes to him just as quickly. "And you're the clumsy idiot that knocked over the dummy?" MacCready finds even a small chuckle to be painful. "Should have known it was you. Not too many costumed weirdos running around the Commonwealth that live long enough to get a reputation."

"Why were you trying to kill me?"

"I was hired to. Isn't it obvious?"

"Who sent you?"

"I don't ask for names, just caps."

"Sounds like Charlie's work to me," Nick tells her. "A place, a time, and only money exchanges hands."

"But why me?"

Not only does he find her multitude of questions boring, but the pain from being kicked in the ribs is getting the better of him. "Look lady, I don't know who you are, but ya must of pissed somebody off, because they want you dead. Not just dead and gone either, they wanted you to suffer before ya kicked it."

"That explains the poor marksmanship."

She has a devious thought. "You think they'd pay me if I brought them his head?"

Without a second thought, the wounded mercenary attempts to wrestle himself free of the synthetic detective's hold. The young man's fervor proves no match against the strength of Nick Valentine, however.

"You know who might have a handle on this shady business, Hancock. It is his town."

"Good point."

"You guys aren't gonna let him torture me, are you?"

"Torture never crossed my mind, actually," the Sole Survivor reassures him.

The young man breathes a sigh of relief. "For a second there-" His thought is cut short by Nick pistol-whipping him. He immediately goes limp.

"Grab an arm."