Piper and Jun Write a Newspaper

12.18.2290 MON - Exclusive

"Marcy knows. She understands."

"Okay, but I don't understand. What could you possibly need with armor? Where do you plan on going that you'll need it?"

"Tenpines."

Piper plopped onto a sofa while Jun attempted to dry the hard armor with his soaked tee. "Oh my god..."

"I wasn't going to go alone," he said. "I just hadn't seen you earlier."

Piper ran a hand through her hair, getting the annoyingly wet strands out of her face. "Okay, that's a little better, but you still haven't told me what's up there in Tenpines."

Jun looked up from the armor with the devil in his eyes. "Revolutionaries."

"Whoa, hang on there a second. Are we talking in the Mayor Hancock way? The original Minutemen way? Or something else?"

"Let me show you." Jun set down the armor and jogged upstairs. Murmured greetings were exchanged between he and Joanna before he reappeared with a folder that he handed off to Piper. "This letter was sent to me today."

"Here or at home?"

"Home."

She dried her fingertips on a cushion and pulled out the letter. "Through a provisioner?"

"Yes."

"It's dated today."

"Yes."

*

December 18, 2090

Dear Mr. Jun Long,

My wife and I love your stories. You are our favorite reporter. We are writing to you now because our settlement has been neglected by the Minutemen for a long time, and we were one of the first to rejoin the fold, if you remember. While our calls for defense have always been answered, we do not receive the same treatment as Sanctuary or Starlight. Other settlements have been receiving necessary upgrades to their defenses and buildings, while we still live in shacks made of rusted metal and rotting wood.

We recently learned that Preston Garvey traded a percentage of crop surplus to the Brotherhood of Steel in exchange for vital technology that helped ensure the continued safety of Minutemen settlements. As a result, our food merchants have had less to sell to us, and our crops are just enough to keep us fed. We have little stored away in case of emergency.

We have outlined our concerns in three letters sent to Sanctuary in the past month, but have thus far received no reply. We do not even know if those letters were received. We reached out to our neighboring settlement, Outpost Zimonja, only to find that they are in a similar predicament.

Mr. Long, I am writing to you because we have been inspired by Mayor Hancock's words. We wish we could've been there to hear them for ourselves, but nonetheless, we were inspired. We are planning a revolution here. Though we do not anticipate an exchange of bullets, we are concerned about recent events regarding the raiding of a citizen's home. We have had the pleasure of meeting Strong once before. He and the General repelled Gunners from our little cliffside settlement a little over a year ago. We were a little afraid of him, at first, but Strong genuinely believed in the "milk of human kindness," and has helped shift some our views. We were grateful for his perspective, despite the short moment we had with him. When news of the raid upon his home hit here, we were appalled. How could the Minutemen so willingly do this thing? Was this really being done in the name of public health? How come public health is conveniently ignored when it comes to Tenpines? Zimonja?