A dilapidated gas station was submerged in a pool of red, with occasional specks of white, tinted varying shades of orange by small fires. A family of enormous rodents also occupied this space, but were suspended above the fires on spits, rotated every few minutes by white-clad slaves. The many red soldiers exchanged insults, stories, cigarettes, whetstones, and eventually, roasted mole rat.

Two slaves in particular brought an entire mole rat, roasted and spiced in more splendor than the others, through the door of the gas station. Inside, they were met with the sight of officers in armor a good deal nicer than that of the foot soldiers outside. One wore a helmet clearly designating him a Legate, and another's armor marked him a Centurion, whose Century the Legate was accompanying.

The two meat-bearing slaves brought their burden straight to the Legate, doing their best to ignore the visible agitation of the Centurion. They were, after all, Legate Ennius' slaves, and it was his wrath they had to concern themselves with; not the Centurion's. While one of the two announced the meal and its spices to the quite-particular Legate, the other noted a figure in the back of the room.

The man was tall and thin, though somewhat shorter as a result of being sat and bent over a radio. His skin was of that same ambiguous light brown as many of the converted tribals in Caesar's Legion, and his forcibly shaved black hair had a similar effect, which only furthered the resentment his mole-rat-serving counterpart felt for him. Here was a man, she reasoned, who could just as easily have been a Legionnaire, but was instead taking the easier slave position of 'radio repairman.'

The man was presumably a medic, also, but Cornsilk hadn't seen any such work from him in the week he'd served Ennius. And here he was, making an already on-edge Centurion angrier by his presence, and not having fixed the radio after breaking it several days ago. If the man hadn't been a gift from another Legate in Neo Roma, he would've been crucified for breaking Ennius' much-vaunted luxury.

"That will be all," Cornsilk heard her Legate announce, pulling her eyes from their silent attack on her despised counterpart. She and the slave with her exited the gas station as commanded, leaving the mole rat in the care of lesser officers with sharp knives.

"Mole rat over a spit," Ennius observed. "It's like being a scout all over again."

Centurion Pompeius only just barely refrained from observing that this brand of absurd expectation was likely the exact reason Ennius was being sent away from Neo Roma's lights and luxuries. The man was still a competent commander, Pompeius had no doubt, but the city had begun to corrupt and fatten him. Having a medic slave work to repair a radio as a wrist-slap punishment was a prime example, but the Centurion did not allow his gaze to linger on that fellow over-long, given an earlier, more private conversation.

"I don't remember having a little thing like that blonde around on any scouting mission," Pompeius answered, unable to resist one small jab. This one was at least more friendly than others that he'd forced down.

"Oh, you liked that one?" Ennius grinned, only somewhat aware of the Centurion's inner conflict. "I heard you preferred to break in new soldiers."

Pompeius felt a vein on his forehead bulge, as well as the arteries in his neck. He could've sworn he saw the presumed medic look in his direction, but further inspection showed the man to be still tinkering with the radio.

"I haven't figured out who started that rumor," Pompeius pointed out through his teeth.

"Indeed," Ennius chuckled, taking a plate with a prime cut of mole rat and the appropriate silverware. "That would likely require a new and inventive manner of execution."

As Pompeius felt his famous temper begin to cool marginally, a scream filtered through the broken down building they inhabited. The officers stood, as shouting followed the outburst. Momentarily, a young Legionnaire entered the gas station, and announced that "Rock-Skull's gone crazy, sir!"

Pompeius spared one suspicious glance at the medic slave then, before bursting out the door. It was about Rock-Skull's addiction to a potent new Psycho/Buffout mix he'd spoken with the medic earlier, and the Centurion saw no reason to view the situation as coincidental. Rock-Skull was a personal favorite of Pompeius, though he made an effort not to treat the younger man as such. Rock was a Centurion in the making, if only he could get beyond his chem inclinations.

On exiting the gas station, Pompeius saw a yao-guai of a man with a fresh corpse's dashed skull beneath one foot, and a large sledge in his hands. Rock's eyes were blood red around the irises, made doubly eerie by the firelight and red armor reflecting off them. Chems, Pompeius decided, before taking his own enormous sword from the officer who'd presented it to him.

Five minutes later, after a failed attempt at reason which left Rock-Skull dead at his feet, Pompeius heard a soldier calling for him.

"The Legate, sir!"

The Centurion snapped back into place, blocking out the friend he'd just hacked down. Remembering his doubts of the medic, he charged, knocking open the gas station's door, and was greeted with a sight slightly less grim than that of Rock-Skull. Legate Ennius sat on the chair he'd evidently never risen from, but was now snoring, with his head back, and his plate of mole rat fallen at his side.

Rather than the medic, who should have been there, Pompeius saw only the radio the man had been working on, which itself emitted a whine of such high pitch he could scarcely hear it. The gas station's back door was conspicuously open, but the Centurion ignored this, instead moving to the radio, and slapping it into a wall with the flat of his sword. Behind the radio, as it turned out, had been a slave collar, which began to beep conspicuously when the radio stopped whining. Pompeius, active as he now was, dropped his blade and tossed the collar out the open back door of the gas station.

-•-•-•-

Half a mile away, sprinting and wheezing, one ex-slave of Caesar's Legion ran through the Mojave, without any sort of light to help him traverse the path. While the Legion had killed or scared away many of the threats in the desert, the greatest danger to the medic himself remained the Bull itself, and making himself a bright target for them was ill-advised.

Suddenly, a small explosion could be heard in the distance behind him, and the young man's run slowed to a walk, as he turned to look back at the fires of the Legion camp. They would not have appreciated his gift, he decided, and sped up again, though only to a jog, this time.

He'd been told that there were all manner of secret caves in this region of the Wastes, through which escaped slaves were spirited with some regularity. This night in particular had been his best opportunity, between the gas station, the chem addict, the location, and the Legate of fading competence. There was still the difficulty that Legion scouts were entirely certain to be capable of catching him though, so the ex-slave continued moving, aware that death was only half a mile or so behind him, even if it hadn't yet mobilized.

At least the ants had been killed, he noted.

The experience of wandering the Mojave was all relative to the perspective. After the great fires cleansed and contaminated the Earth, the vast landscape was no longer of its tranquil nature. Wars were fought between those who couldn’t co-exist, creatures twisted by the very chemicals of death, starvation and madness stole the away the lost and pathless.

Tala rested atop a mountainous dune as her eyes — long since acclimated to the dark — studied the environment around her. Her tied back, silk-like black hair blew with the light breeze. It was a quiet night. She liked quiet.

Since dawn, she had been traveling place to place gathering whatever scraps or things left behind that she could. With the Legion victory over New Vegas, things that were available to all had suddenly gone scarce. Her pack was decently full. She could still move about freely, but the noise. The noise would give her away. There was no remedy for that.

For as long as she could remember, she had lived and breathed the harsh Nevada terrain. Being of the Mohave people, their principles of being of the land had been ingrained into her. She grew up with the language, culture, and the skills to survive the wilderness. Different from the time before the Earth turned to such a sad shade of color, the game wasn’t what her ancestral relatives were accustomed to. Her prey were those that could kill her as easily as she could a rodent. Every night before sleep took her, she wondered how it would have been to live in the past. Surely kinder than the present.

Taking a water skin from her belt underneath her long, dark brown overcoat, she took a sip of the precious liquid. It was her tribe’s most guarded secret to where they gathered fresh, unradiated water. Capping the skin, she tied it back onto her belt.

Getting ready to move on, Tala heard something from behind as she spun around with hunting rifle drawn shortly after. Her hazel brown eyes narrowed as several figures stopped dead in their tracks.

“Easy,” said the man up front. “We don’t want any trouble, miss.”

On closer inspection, Tala saw the collars latched around the necks of those behind the speaker. “You’re a slaver.”

The man shook his head. “Those devils can rot under the Mojave sun,” he said. “I’m getting these people out of Caesar’s paradise. Like I said, I’m not looking for trouble. Ask any of them.”

Before she could, another pair of footsteps slowly approached the group. Tala shifted so she could see both parties. As the newcomers drew closer, she recognized the men. “The Underground? Alex?”

The man wearing a dusty cowboy hat looked at her. A wide grin broke across his face. Tag that with his shaggy, brown hair, it was almost comical. “Well I’ll be damned! Didn’t know you were working the routes tonight, Tala.” Alex looked towards the man Tala was almost ready to shoot. “The safe house is all set up. We’ll lead you there. Gotta keep quiet though. We tagged us some happy trigger legionnaires on the way here.”

Tala blinked. “I never heard a thing.”

“Then we did a damn good job,” Alex said. “Head out with those two. I’ll bring up the rear.”

The smuggler nodded as he urged his caravan to get moving. Even after having some dealings with the Underground, Tala wondered what was in it for those who did what they did. Was it simply out of morality or did the slaves owe the group something upon their freedom? Surely it was much more preferred to try their luck out here than in Neo Roma.

“You guiding again?”

Tala leaned to her left and breathed out deeply. “Scavenging,” she said. “If you hadn’t shown up, I’d have put a round in the smuggler. Slavers are hardly the truth-doers.”

Alex grunted as he took out a cigarette. Flipping out out a lighter, he lit the end, took a long draft, then puffed out white smoke. “We could use your help. You may be a selfish bitch, but you can be helpful … at times.”

“I don’t ‘help’ out of charity.”

“It’s a human obligation. We can’t leave them in Caesar’s care! The bastards absolute bat shit crazy!”

“And he happens to have the strongest army. Alex, they pushed back the NCR. They took Camp McCarren. The only reason why they haven’t taken Nellis is because of the Boomer’s prewar weapons. If I’m going to risk my neck — literally — for people I don’t even know? ‘Human obligation’ vaporized when the world went to shit.”

Shuffling the pack higher on her back, she slung her rifle over her shoulder and felt the reassuring handle of her tribal tomahawk. A genuine tomahawk, not some second-rate replica made by some gang. “Try not to get yourself killed. Being crucified isn’t the worst thing the Legion can dish out.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Alex said as he began to move in the direction that the others went. “Stay safe out here Tala. The wastes can really screw a loner.”

—

A good hour had passed since the meeting with the Underground. Tala was en route to a nearby safe house, which the Underground frequented regularly. Due to its proximity to the front lines of the NCR and Legion, it was this region that slaves often fled and were picked up by people such as Alex.

Her relationship with the Underground was a mix. A good handful of the members hated her guts while others loved her. Their knowledge of the Mojave was limited compared to hers. Because of this, they had tried to buy her services permanently. She adamantly refused. She helped if it helped her. Otherwise, her care for the victims of the Legion — or the NCR for that matter — was minute.

When the hill marking the safe house came into view, she unslung her rifle and cradled it within her gloved hands. Mutated creatures, raiders, or gangs often roamed at night. When she began her ascent, an explosion echoed through the vast Mojave night.

She hit the ground searching for the sound. In the distance, she vaguely saw the outline of decrepit building with fires all around. The details were all unknown to her, and she didn’t have the desire to find out.

It was only when the rumble passed did she finally hear the footsteps. A lone figure ran in her direction. She rolled her eyes as she took aim. Seems like everyone’s coming out tonight.

When the figure drew closer, she took a knee and steadied the butt end of her rifle against her shoulder. “That’s close enough.”

She cased the lightly tanned man like she would any beast during a hunt. When she was younger, she made mistakes that she paid for gravely. Like her elder said, ‘only the maddened men repeat the same mistakes tenfold.’

Absently, the ex-slave wondered whether the slave collar had harmed any of the Legion. It wasn't a concern, per se; Ennius in particular had been a disgusting fellow, and the Legion had only liked the medic enough to use the skills he'd revealed to them.

His half-hearted introspection was cut off by an outside voice, and the young man stopped in his tracks, or did his best approximation of such. The result was him doubled over, panting like a ghoulified dog, with one knee on the ground and the opposite hand waving open-palmed in the general direction of the voice he'd heard. He could barely see the speaker, due to the thin state of the night's moon and his own piss-poor vision, but didn't care to make assumptions on the other party's sight. Also, he really did need to stop for a moment.

"Hah," he tried. Realizing his lungs needed a moment more, he waited, his brother's voice coming to mind.

"Die out there and I'll kill you, Pro."

A laugh attempted to escape the ex-slave, causing him to cough, open hand fisting and moving to the ground.

"Chasing... my ghost..." Pro finally managed, once the coughs gave way to further panting. He looked up to the difficult-to-see figure ahead, gulping to swill escaped phlegm. "Legion. Legion are coming. Gotta hide."

From the sound of the voice, Pro recognized the unknown speaker as a woman of similar age. The Legion did not have any use for women beyond slavery, so while this person had no obligation to help him, she would at least need to be not there quite soon, which made her aims the same. If she did know one of the rumored safe havens in this area though, Pro would not object to following. She seemed sane enough, and slaves had no valuables. His heart and lungs continued trying to feed his muscles with considerable effort.

It didn’t take a genius to see that the man was exhausted. Tala watched as his chest heaved in and out, desperate to suck in fresh air. She lowered her weapon slightly deciding what she should do. Should she point him in the direction of the Mojave outpost or just leave him? Either way, it had to be better than where he came from before. Speaking of which…

"Legion. Legion are coming. Gotta hide."

Her blood ran cold like the morning frost. The Legion was here? This close? Her previous dilemma forgotten, her mind raced as she began to piece things together. This man was running from the explosion. The Legion was following him. She swore in her tribe’s tongue. They needed to get out of here fast.

She looked beyond the man as se could swear tiny specks were moving towards them, quickly if her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her. Turning back towards the crest of the hill, she continued her ascension. “Come on then,” she said over her shoulder, “There’s a place we can hide until they pass. Don’t know why their after you, and I don’t really care.”

Her breathing grew shallow as she reached the hilltop. Bending down, she felt along a crevice. Her fingers traced the course texture until she found a small latch. Tugging on the latch, a manmade concealed door opened before her as she stepped inside the musky interior. The lamps inside were lit. There was a smuggling caravan here. Movement from further within emphasized the point.

Two knocks. Three Slaps. Two knocks. One and a half slaps.

The click of a safety whispered in her ears. Be it putting the safety on or off, she didn’t know. The universal sign of a smuggler had been given. Only an unseasoned smuggler wouldn’t get it.

She turned back and saw the man following behind her. She looked to the desert beyond. They were getting closer.

Fearing her voice would echo, she waved urgently. They needed to disappear now. If the Legion came any closer, this safe house would be compromised with a fate worse than death soon following. She shuddered. Legion. They were the only group she truly feared out of all the gangs of the Nevada wastes.

Pro was relieved when the young woman caught on immediately, but despaired at the continued running. Uphill, no less. Still, he knew what was behind, and did not see any reason short of death to stop again. He ignored the rest of his body's assertion that he need not move so quickly, and pulled on stamina he'd not needed for years. Despite this, his new, roped-in associate got ahead of him in the climb, and Pro worried that he might lose sight of her in the dark.

Eventually though, the ex-slave caught up to this compatriot, even as she beckoned him into a hideaway. Without any special acknowledgement, Pro bolted past her, tumbling into the cave unceremoniously, and laying on his back once he'd passed what would necessarily be the door's arc.

He breathed heavily, despite the need for secrecy. The taste of blood was in his throat, and he could see his heart beating through his stomach and the rags that covered it. That was odd, he realized, after a moment, before it hit him: there was light coming from the cave's interior. Given the nature of smoke, and how previous smokeless fuel was, Pro realized there must have been someone in the cave at that moment. He wasn't concerned with that, given the alternative.

"Thanks," he finally managed to get out, after the door had been closed. "They... didn't like... that collar trick...." His body spent a moment more circulating air, before adding "Need a name for that one...."

He continued panting, though he managed to filter it through his nose, which quieted the process somewhat.

In almost any other circumstance, Tala would have laughed as the man tumbled into the cave. It was rather ungraceful and almost comedic - like one of the scenes you show in the pre-war comics she'd occasionally stumble upon. With the Legion so close, however, all she felt was fear. Would the pursuers know where they were? She was confident that she could hinder them if they chose to come through the concealed door, but if she'd survive, that was another matter altogether.

Tala ignored the man. The lights within grew dim as a female woman walked forward. A cowboy repeater aimed straight towards Tala's chest. The native moved not an inch. "You're either an Underground or just shit lucky. Which one?"

"Fire a round," Tala said, "and the whole entire Legion will know where to find this safe house."

"And you're the one who drew them to us."

Tala frowned. To an extent, the woman was right; however, if anyone was to blame, it was the man sucking in air at her feet. She shifted slightly as the voices from the outside grew louder. "Turn out the lights. We'll talk about this later," she said. Tala moved towards the man and tapped him on the forehead. "And you. We'll need to have a chat later."

This woman, Pro noted, had a firm grasp of the situation. He kept from speaking as the two female, gun-wielding occupants of the safehouse negotiated the immigration. His quieted panting slowed to a more comfortable level until he answered.

"I'm sure I'll have the breath, later," he offered. He said it quietly, and proceeded to listen to the voices in the desert outside. That he didn't recognize them said nothing, given there was an entire centuria searching for him in the immediate vicinity.

"How the fuck are we gonna find this cretin out here?"

"By looking. That is how we will find him, because Pompeius will keep us here until we do."

"This's way too close to NCR for a whole century to sit on its collective thumbs."

There was a pause at this, and the voice's audible proximity worried Pro. Even with his body wanting to steal the others' oxygen from the cave, he held his breath a moment. The door remained undisturbed.

"We're two days from that junk-heap statue. The Centurion will give it one more before we pack in, so we won't be getting any sleep tonight or tomorrow."

The other soldier's profanities trailed off, and the words became dull sounds again. Pro sighed his relief, and turned to the other two cave-dwellers. Slowly standing, he realized the cave didn't match his own height, before speaking quietly, with his palms open in an attempt to calm.

"Now, I think it would serve us all to move a bit further in, away from the door. And to put the guns down. You're both clearly slave-shuttlers, and we all need some shuttling now."

Tala nodded in response to the man as she began to tune into the conversation outside. While she had no loyalty to any faction - NCR or the Underground - information was a rather lucrative object of interest to those looking for it. Most of the conversation was slave-related talk. While entertaining, it contained nothing of value that could be sold off to the highest bidder.

Moments that felt like hours finally passed when the voices began to drift farther and farther away. Tala breathed a sigh of relief as she relaxed slightly. Her attention focused on the slave smuggler her was focused equally on her. What was to be done she wondered.

"Now, I think it would serve us all to move a bit further in, away from the door. And to put the guns down. You're both clearly slave-shuttlers, and we all need some shuttling now."

Tala agreed entirely with the man's statement as she looked to the other occupant in the small cave entrance. "Be a good sport and listen to the man. His idea isn't half bad, no?"

The smuggler scoffed as she made her way further into the cave. "I have a caravan with me," she said. "You'll have to wait until the Legion moves on. Not sure when. The extra passage was an option, but the Legion will probably be at its side as well."

Tala watched the slaver go as she turned back to the person she saved. "We'll be here for a bit then," she said moving towards the interior of the cave. "Just from circumstance, you're either a prisoner or slave. Caesar taking prisoners is unlikely though. Particularly NCR ... unless you were the great Aaron Kimble himself however. That'd be a different conversation altogether now wouldn't it? So, my guess is that you're a slave. Great job pissing the Legion off. You have a name?"

Pro followed his savior, head hunched to meet the demands of the cave. From her words, he imagined the fate of Kimball in her hands to involve a hefty ransom. The honest were dangerous in a unique way, he considered, before answering her.

"An easy one to say, no less. I'm called Pro." He paused, observing the way oil-born light played through the cave ahead of them, and thinking over his next words. How much did he have left to do?

"I'm something of an anthropologist at heart, which involves pissing a great many people off, but I work medicine for those who can return a favor. For the Legion, that favor was not crucifying me for helping a little town with a losing battle. They'd probably give you the same payment for me, Miss...."

Pro made a vague gesture to indicate his wish for his counterpart to fill the given blank, despite both the dark and her leading their walk through the cave. Immediately distracting was the sound of a dog growling from the direction they were moving in. The young medic slowed instinctively, wondering at whether the beast had been trained in either stealth or manners.