One Month Later,

New Arizona Desert,

Black Sun Outpost

Black Sun was a quiet little town, with a population just under a couple hundred. Big enough to keep itself sustained, but small enough to not strain their already-limited supplies. Every few months, they got a clan of nomads passing through from Sanctum Mesa or one of the other nearby settlements, but that was about it for outside contact.

It wasn’t that outsiders avoided Black Sun. It was just that, in the middle of a desert plain, it was just too remote to justify making the trip without a reliable water supply.

And, honestly, that was how they liked it.

With the occasional notable, loud exception.

Dixon glared upwards as an ‘official’ transport headed to Reza City roared overhead, its guns aimed unerringly at the town.

It wouldn’t fire; not unless they gave it a reason to. Still, that was a pretty ballsy power play on the Benefactors’ behalf: ‘Don’t even try to attack our inter-city transports. We’ll blast your primitive settlements to smithereens the second we sense hostility’.

Hard to believe that, once upon a time, the earth had belonged to humans.

Dixon cocked his head suddenly, certain that he’d heard someone call his name. It was barely audible, and garbled as all hell over the sound of the transport’s engines, but he was sure that’s what he’d heard.

Then, with the transport a little farther away, it came again. “Dixon!”

It was Lucy, on the lookout tower. And she didn’t sound happy.

“Dixon!” she shouted again, voice getting more and more anxious the more she shouted. “Get up here!”

“What?” Dixon sighed, climbing the ladder and coming to stand behind the petite blonde, a pair of dusty binoculars pressed to her face.

The tower overlooked most of the dusty plain that surrounded Black Sun, a relatively small Outpost of only a few hundred people. Still, by the standards of most Outposts, they were thriving, and it was his job to make sure it stayed that way.

Well, not his only job, but still.

He stared out across the dunes, frowning, looking for anything out of the ordinary that would’ve prompted such a worried tone from Lucy, who was usually so stalwart. But he couldn’t see much of anything. He nudged her and gestured for the binoculars, holding them up to his eyes.

Lucy helped orient him, pointing him out roughly eastwards. “You see that?”

He did, actually. And what he saw wasn’t good.

***

“We’ve got a situation,” Dixon announced, marching into the Mayor’s longhouse.

The Mayor looked over, startled out of a conversation with a pair of scared-looking Wastelanders Dixon didn’t recognize. Probably new arrivals. More and more were showing up every day. He ignored the faces he didn’t know and focused on the one he did — the Mayor’s heavyset mug.

The Mayor looked unhappy, but the urgency seemed to be visible on Dixon’s face, so he simply nodded and turned to the strangers with his patented Politician Smile. “It seems my attention is needed elsewhere. We’ll resume this meet this evening. In the meantime, y’all can stay at the public house, free of charge. My treat.”

The couple didn’t look too happy, but Dixon knew they’d stay. They always did. They didn’t have anywhere else to go.

Once they shuffled out of the Mayor’s longhouse and down the dirt road, the Mayor turned to Dixon with a scowl. Dixon ignored it, reaching for the bottle of hooch that the Mayor kept ‘hidden’ at the back of the bookcase. He poured himself a glass and sat heavily at the table, staring into the brown, viscous liquid. It tasted like concentrated radiation burns, and hurt even worse on the way out, but Dixon needed the buzz to get him through the next few minutes.

“What’s so urgent that ya had to chase those poor folks outta here for?” The Mayor stormed over to sit across from Dixon, and snatched back his bottle.

Dixon took a deep breath. “Lucy called me up to the lookout tower not too long ago. Had something she wanted to show me.” He swallowed a mouthful of the disgusting drink, grimacing as it went down. “Saw some activity in the valley a few miles north.”

“And?” The Mayor snorted. “Neighbors are good. Might taunt the muties away from us for once.”

Dixon snatched back the bottle and filled his now-empty glass back to the top. “That there’s the problem, Mayor. The ‘activity’ consisted mainly of Cannibals.”

The Mayor froze, bottle raised halfway to his lips. “Y— You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

Cannibals weren’t like other muties. Raiders and Cultists, at least, still had something approaching human sensibilities rattlin’ round in their heads. Cannibals — ‘least, the mutant kind — were something else. Something… raw.

Savage.

“Where’d they come from?” The Mayor demanded. His thick fist tightened around the bottle, knuckles turning white.

Dixon shook his head. “Don’t know that. Lucy insists she ain’t seen nothin’ on this scale before now. Gonna have to have a talk with the other lookouts, see if any of them saw anythin’.”

“Christ,” the Mayor hissed. “People ‘re already on edge. There’s no time for coordinatin’ with the other lookouts. We need to take care of this now, before it starts a panic. You need to go out to them muties. Find out what they want, why they’re here.”

“Now, now, hang on!” Dixon’s chair squealed across the rough wooden floor as he stood up in a rush. This was not going how he’d expected. “I can’t very well take on an entire cannibal clan on my own, Mayor!”

“Why not? I’ve seen you shoot.” The Mayor stood as well, scowling at up the taller man with a determined glint in his eye. “Go at night. They won’t be able to spot you. Take Jimmy with you. It’ll be good for the kid to get some experience.” He reached for his hat, setting it atop his round little head. “Don’t forget what happened to the last Marshal when he didn’t take my advice.”

Dixon stared after the Mayor as he left the longhouse, feeling like he’d been slapped. Was that supposed to be some kind of joke?

He stared down at himself, at the fresh Marshal badge pinned to his dusty leather jacket. Not too long ago, it had been Taye’s. Dixon hadn’t exactly been friends with his old boss, but he’d respected the man. Then Taye and the Mayor had gotten into a screaming match — Dixon couldn’t remember what about — and it had ended with Taye storming off into the desert. The Mayor had delayed and stonewalled all attempts by the deputies to search for their missing Marshal until almost a week later, when it was far too late.

They found Taye’s body out by the old well, skin bleached and tanned by the sun. And Dixon had gotten the job instead.

Groaning in anger, Dixon punched the table. The bottle and glasses rattled, threatening to fall off. Dixon ignored it.

If he had more balls, he’d ignore the fat little bastard and follow his own gut. But, as much as he respected Taye, he didn’t want to end up like the man.

Dixon took another swig of the Mayor’s hooch, just to spite the man, and set out to prepare. He needed to rest up and see if he couldn’t convince Jimmy to actually take his orders for once. He needed to retrieve his rifle from Petunia. Most of all, he needed to steel himself for what he would no doubt find in a Cannibal lair.

All in all, he had a lot of work to do.

***

South. It was the only plan Glory had had for so long that she wasn’t sure what to do when she finally arrived in the south.

Her mental maps and compasses—assuming they were still accurate—placed her somewhere in what had once been northern Arizona. Now, however, it was all nameless desert.

Somewhere to her north-east was the border leading into the New Navajo Nation, she knew, but she wouldn’t be safe there. No one who wasn’t either Native American, or related to them, was truly safe in Navajo Nation. Father’s reports had labeled them as a bunch of reclusive fanatics, but Glory wasn’t sure how accurate that was, and wasn’t particularly keen on finding out. And, frankly, Glory did not look anywhere near Native American.

Her only other possible destination was a little farther to the south-east, then. Reza City. The only truly safe place in the desert that she knew of. The sheer population of the citadels granted their inhabitants anonymity. True, the prospect of giving up her personal freedoms didn’t appeal, but she didn’t have many options.

If Father wanted her back, which he most certainly did, He could. He had connections that spanned the entire continent, and the one place He would never willingly go was the citadels. He’d said so himself.

Glory had expected to walk up to the front gates of Reza City alone and throw herself into their ‘immigration program’. What she hadn’t been expecting, however, was to stumble across a troop of eager, enthusiastic, though somewhat suspicious nomads, a few klicks south of the New Navajo Nation border. Though they’d greeted her with weapons drawn, they’d eventually lowered them and offered a tentative hand of friendship when Glory revealed herself to be a fellow pilgrim towards the citadels.

The thought of traveling alongside humans made Glory’s synthskin crawl, but she reminded herself that she’d have to deal with a lot more humans once she got to Reza City, so this would be good practice.

At first, everything had gone smoothly. She proved her value to the nomads’ unofficial leaders—a stern-faced woman named Judy, and a cheerful young man named Costa. Mostly through picking out which mutated plants were still safe for human consumption, bolstering the nomads’ rations with edible roots and flowers. Father’s botany studies came in handy yet again.

But, like everything else in Glory’s short life, it didn’t last.

***

Cannibal

noun

a human who eats the flesh of other human beings

It was, overall, an ill-fitting name, as the creatures that stumbled across the caravan, armed with bone-clubs and spears made of sharpened femurs, couldn’t really be considered ‘human’ anymore.

They came upon the troop in the late evening, just as the nomad leaders were waking up and preparing the rest of the travelers—over sixty, including three children under the age of twelve, and two elderly individuals over the age of sixty—to keep moving. Then the animalistic roars had echoed across the nearby rocky mountains, and everyone was awake.

They’d tried to run, at first, but the cannibals had set a trap. A collection of boulders, each easily the size of a full-grown man, had been set up to slide down the mountain if someone activated a hidden tripwire. And, sure enough, one of the children had tripped across it.

Glory hadn’t been aware that cannibals were smart enough to set up traps, let alone traps so intricate.

A few of the nomads had been caught in the landslide, and their friends and family tried to dig them out. Second mistake. It slowed down the group long enough for the cannibals—not typically known for their speed—to catch up with the rest of them.

When he saw just how many cannibals came stumbling down the hills to greet them, Costa convinced Judy to surrender, rather than to fight. He most likely hoped to minimize casualties. Glory understood the motivation, even if it was futile in this situation. Cannibals didn’t take prisoners like cultists or raiders might—they took victims.

They took meals.

The nomads would be lucky if they survived the night.

Glory wanted to fight—to get herself away, even if she couldn’t save anyone else. But then one of the children grabbed her wrist with an iron grip, and she couldn’t pry the child off without drawing undue attention and scrutiny to herself.

They’ll destroy you if they find out what you are, Father’s voice purred. They’ll tear you apart.

Glory tried to ignore her growing anxiety as the largest cannibal hefted her over its shoulders like cargo. Impressive, given how she ought to be quite a bit heavier than a human of her size. Perhaps the cannibals were simply so freakishly strong that they didn’t notice.

She struggled; of course she did. But if she managed to miraculously break free of the cannibal’s grasp, it’d make it pretty obvious that she wasn’t human. She had to simply wait and bide her time.

And to think, she got captured by cannibals mere days before reaching Reza City. Glory didn’t truly believe in fate or a higher power, but she couldn’t help but feel like something had a grudge against her.

Was this punishment for her, for turning against her creator?

The nomads shrieked and sobbed as they were spirited away, the children screaming for help. Glory knew it was a waste of time. Even in the unlikely event that there was an outpost close enough to hear them, there was no way the wastelanders would risk their own lives to rescue a bunch of nomads. Especially not if they knew where they’d been bound for.

Wastelanders held a certain hatred of the citadels, viewing them as bastions of mistreatment and corruption. And, in a way, Glory supposed that they were right. But it wasn’t like there were many more options in the desert.

Their group was led down into the basin of a large canyon, the open, jagged rock faces along the edges clearly identifying it as a newer canyon, made during ‘Operation: Crack the Earth’ during the War. A low rumble made Glory flinch as the cannibal carried her into a cave in the side of the man-made canyon.

The stones holding the mouth of the cave up were precariously unsteady. Honestly, it was impressive that the natural seismic activity of the cracked crust hadn’t caused the cave to collapse already, but Glory was 99.5% sure that a single well-placed explosion would cause a catastrophic cave-in.

Then Glory was suddenly dropped from the cannibal’s shoulder, and dragged across the ground by her hair, on her back, into the depths of a massive stone chamber. A vaulted ceiling stretched so high above her that Glory couldn’t see the top. Thick smoke choked the air, originating from a roaring fire in the center of the stone chamber.

Her mutant captor shoved her roughly down into the dirt by the fire, where she landed with a grunt. She flipped over to watch, wide-eyed, as more cannibals crawled into her vision from the darkness. Most of the newcomers were younger, ranging from early adolescence to young adulthood. At least, she assumed they were younger. It was difficult to tell the age of cannibals, thanks to their extensive mutations, but these were slightly shorter and less hideously over-muscled than the bigger ones that had attacked the nomads—and Glory along with them.

Something inside Glory burned with resentment as the nomads were deposited into the dirt beside her. Judy coughed up a lungful of dirt as Costa flinched when one of the cannibals came a little too close. If not for them, Glory wouldn’t have been taken. Cannibals attacked for food, and one lone traveler wasn’t worth the effort of an attack. But a full caravan was practically irresistible.

They should’ve known. They should’ve prepared. They should’ve been better armed.

It was foolish and illogical, Glory knew. After all, she’d chosen to join forces with the nomads. Strength in numbers, she’d thought. Now, that strength was going to be her downfall, if she couldn’t escape before the cannibals found out what she was.

“Judy,” Glory whispered. When she received no answer, she tried again, louder this time. “Judy!”

Judy was too distracted with trying to comfort a sobbing young woman beside her. And that woman was hardly the only one distraught. Many of the nomads were literally trembling with fear, which Glory knew only thrilled the cannibals even more.

Glory couldn’t blame the nomads, though. Cannibals had the worst reputation out of all the wasteland mutants, by far. Even far to the north, Father had spoken of them often.

Glory couldn’t feel fear, exactly, but she certainly didn’t enjoy the slick, cold feeling slithering through her circuits. She did her best to ignore the discomfort as she examined her surroundings. The cannibals—each at least two and a half meters tall, with muscles far larger than what was possible for a pure human, and a twisted, troglodyte face, with tusks and sunken, bloodshot eyes—had gathered around the captured individuals in a semi-circle.

It wasn’t like them to be patient, and Glory had been half-expecting to find one of the nomads already roasting on a spit over the fire. The cannibals were waiting for something. That fact only increased the apprehension building in Glory’s core.

A low moan to her left drew Glory’s attention, and she turned to face one of the nomads that had been dropped by her side, unconscious. Nick, she believed was his name. A young man; fairly vibrant, given the setting he’d grown up in.

Glory peered over at him and allowed a frisson of concern to bleed through her general displeasure. She now noticed a fairly large cut on his right temple, which didn’t appear to be clotting.

Glory hadn’t received much more than a basic first aid plug-in, but even she knew that head wounds tended to bleed more than elsewhere. Even knowing that, the steady flow of crimson alarmed her.

She glanced around nervously and, when none of their mutant guards seemed to be looking their way, tore off a small strip of his shirt to use as a makeshift bandage. She pressed the dark fabric to the wound hard, trying to ignore the way he moaned.

A loud roar to her left made her jump, and a bone-white hand grabbed the back of her head and yanked upward, tugging Glory by her hair. The makeshift bandage fluttered to the sandy floor. Thankfully, his cut appeared to have stopped bleeding since she began treatment. Glory couldn’t pay much attention to Nick’s still form, though, as her new captor tugged her close enough to snarl down at her.

She shouted in feigned pain, knowing it would seem unnatural if she didn’t. The cannibal ignored her, too busy spitting something at her in its croaking, guttural language.

“He’s hurt!” Glory rasped in explanation. “I’m trying to help him!” She thrashed, hands lashing out towards the cannibal holding her.

Its free hand came up to grab one of her flailing wrists, squeezing as it continued grunting and huffing in her face, as if he expected her to understand his primitive language.

Glory winced, feeling the delicate servos in her hand flex and grind against each other. He grunted something at her, shaking her wrist hard enough to send shocks up her arm, and send warnings to her processor.

Glory honestly began to worry that he’d snap her hand clean off, revealing her true nature to everyone present. If the cannibals didn’t destroy her first out of anger for not being edible, she didn’t doubt that the nomads would do it for them out of fear.

But just as pressure warnings began flashing in her vision, the troglodyte released Glory, and she landed in the dirt with a thud.

With the cannibal no longer snarling in her ear, the rest of the chamber fell almost eerily silent. She scrambled back, away from the cannibal, her hand cradled to her chest. She gently flexed her fingers and rotated her wrist, silently grateful when everything appeared to be in working order.

She never even noticed the other cannibal creeping up behind her, until the bone axe came down in the dirt mere centimeters from the top of her head. The newcomer roared at her, somehow even bigger, uglier, and more aggressive than the one that almost broke Glory’s wrist.

Glory let out a static-filled yelp that she hoped the others were too distracted to notice and jumped back. She realized, watching a few of the other cannibals gather around her and the ax-cannibal, that this was a spectator sport. And she was the sport.

But then, just as a new cannibal stepped forward with a bone spear in hand, a voice echoed in the chamber. “Enough!”

Glory froze.

Cannibals didn’t speak English. As far as she knew, they didn’t speak any language known to mankind. And yet…

The cannibals seemed to understand the command, and backed off, though they definitely certainly didn’t look happy about it. Glory looked around wildly for the source of the voice, until her gaze landed on the far side of the fire pit.

It was difficult to make out, with the distortion through the super-heated air, but it looked like another cannibal. Or, at least, a man dressed like a cannibal. He had the same bone-white skin as the rest of them, with long, stringy white hair and piercing, pale blue eyes.

Unlike the rest of the tribe, though, he didn’t have the facial features of a NuAnderthal, or any other mutated, regressive offshoot of humanity. In fact, his face looked perfectly ordinary, if a little plain.

His eerie eyes, so pale they almost looked white, glinted with intelligence; a trait which the rest of the cannibals lacked.

He spoke, though Glory couldn’t make out the words, and the brutish cannibals closest to him dropped to their knees in reverence. Or worship.

He nudged them aside, though, and stepped around the fire, trekking closer. It took Glory a moment to realize he was coming straight for her.

He finally came to a stop directly in front of her. Some part of Glory wanted to be relieved; at least they could communicate with this one. But the rest of her warned her that anyone living so serenely in a cannibal lair could only be trouble.

“I thought I should come down and… welcome our guests. I’m truly sorry about the rough treatment. We’re still working on manners. I’m sure you understand.”

His voice was soft, almost lyrical in an unsettling sort of way. But more than the man-cannibal himself, Glory was more confused and off-put by the phrasing he used.

Though his words were meant for their entire group, he seemed to be speaking only to Glory. His eyes never left her, and in fact almost seemed to be staring through her as he spoke. At the end of his speech, he cocked his head at her with a little smile.

“What’s your name, my dear?”

The endearment reminded Glory sharply of Father — Would you please hand me that, my dear? What’s wrong, my dear? Follow my instructions to the letter, my dear — and she repressed a sudden urge to shudder. Hoping the static she felt wasn’t audible in her voice, she answered, “Glory.”

“Glory…” He hummed, his smile sharpening ever-so-slightly as he reached out to run his fingers through Glory’s hair. “A wonderfully appropriate name.”

A tension coiled in Glory’s servos at his treatment, and the inescapability of his gaze. She wanted to fidget and slink away, but with his eyes on her (and everyone else’s in the chamber, cannibal and human alike), she could only remain still as a statue.

“What’s your name?” she finally croaked, if only to break the thick silence that had fallen over the chamber. And because the sharing of information was generally suggested in rapport-building guides, wasn’t it?

The intelligent cannibal—if he even was a cannibal—looked surprised by her question, but he didn’t seem to take offense. “My family calls me Ghost.”

It was a very fitting name.

“What do you want with us?” Glory asked. The with me that she wanted to ask remained unspoken, but something in Ghost’s icy gaze told her that he knew what she was really asking.

He dropped to his knees in front of her suddenly, and Glory jerked back. Ghost didn’t move to close the gap between them, though, and simply cocked his head at her. “Call it… intuition.”

“Intuition?”

“I think,” he breathed, softly enough that Glory was fairly sure no one else could hear, “that you are not what you appear to be… do you agree?”

His words had Glory’s hydraulics locking up in terror. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, voice thankfully sounding more certain than she felt.

But Ghost appeared unconvinced. “Oh, I think you do.” He reached out towards her again, to brush against her cheek. Glory jerked back and stared at his hand, still stretched towards her. And on his palm, Glory could see a perfectly circular scar all but seared into his pale skin, red and irritated. How peculiar, she noted idly.

“It’s subtle,” he continued, “but if you know what to look for…” He smirked and withdrew his scarred hand. “Oh, my dear girl. If only we met years ago. We could have been such good friends.”

Something in the tone of his voice suggested otherwise, though Glory remained silent.

He scuttled forward suddenly, until they were practically nose-to-nose. “I think my brother should have a look at you.”

Before Glory could respond, he grabbed her arms and yanked her to her feet. She yelled and struggled, but he ignored her. He was much, much stronger than a human of his size should be—muscular and toned, certainly, but slim, especially when compared to the massive cannibals around them.

But Glory couldn’t escape his grip. Not without revealing herself as something inhuman as well, which would certainly result in her destruction.

The best she could hope for was that Ghost’s brother wasn’t as off-putting as Ghost himself was.

***

Dixon didn’t like working with Jimmy.

It’s not that he disliked the kid personally, or wished him any harm. He just didn’t like putting his life, and the lives of everyone else at Black Rock, in the hands of someone so… reckless. But, Jimmy had been hand-picked by Taye, and Black Sun wasn’t exactly overflowing with people volunteering to be his deputy, so Dixon did what he could to ignore the young deputy’s more grating traits and push him towards becoming a real, reliable man of the people.

At the moment, though, Dixon could barely think over the deputy’s endless prattle.

“I ain’t never fought a cannibal before!” he crowed, sounding almost excited, like it was something to be proud of. “Oh, boy! You think they’ll have one of those bone prisons? With the pretty ladies needin’ rescue?”

It wasn’t really his fault. His only exposure to the Crazies of the wasteland, outside of whispered horror stories that were already half-fiction, was in Citadel propaganda and homemade comic books. And there was no way the Citadel would be goin’ on about pretty ladies, so Dixon was pretty sure his ideas came from those damn pre-war comics Old Nick liked to ink over for the kids, rewriting the stories to fit the post-war wasteland.

“So?” Jimmy asked, peering up at Dixon with wide, baby-blues. He was Lucy’s half-brother, and the two shared the same sandy blond hair and big blue eyes. They could’ve been mistaken for twins, if Dixon didn’t know for a fact that Lucy was four years older. Acted like it, too.

It took Dixon a moment to realize that he’d been asked a question, and shook his head apologetically. “Sorry, what was that?”

Jimmy looked disappointed for barely a second, before bouncing back and saying, “I said, did ya ever shoot a cannibal before?”

Dixon’s gut squirmed uncomfortably. “Yeah.”

“What about a whole campfull? Did ya shot them before?”

“I have,” Dixon agreed again.

“Wh— How? When?”

Dixon swallowed. Unbidden, his left hand went to the scarred, mottled skin of his right wrist, tucked up under his sleeve. Memories of his escape and near-miss with the muties made him wince.

Shaking the memories, he grunted, “Before you were born.” He clasped Jimmy on the shoulder and leaned in with a serious expression. “Listen, kid. Ordinarily, I don’t mind the questions. But we got bigger problems ’n your curiosity right now. You can ask ‘em after we get back. After we see whether those freaks ‘re keepin’ anyone ‘gainst their will. You hear me?”

Jimmy nodded. “Sorry, sir. Guess I—” He cut himself off with a nervous laugh. “Guess I’m just nervous ’s all.”

“Understandable. But you don’t deal with your nerves by distracting everyone around you.” Hoo boy, Dixon was starting to sound like his old man. He distracted himself quick with his rifle, lining up the scope out across the dunes. He jolted when a gloved hand waved in front of him, and turned to glare at a wide-eyed Jimmy.

“Damn it! You don’t ever, ever stick your hand out in front of a rifle—”

“I know, sir, and I’m sorry, but look.” He pointed somewhere over Dixon’s shoulder.

Still annoyed, Dixon turned to see what the deputy was pointing at. Vaguely, he could make out a human shape at the top of the ridge.

“Another cannibal?” Jimmy asked.

Dixon reached for his binoculars. He couldn’t see the figure, but something inside him told him it wasn’t another cannibal. His gut was only very rarely wrong, but he’d still rather double-check than blindly trust his gut.

He held the binoculars up to his eyes, and examined the figure at the top of the ridge.

Whoever it was, they wore an oversized duster with a faded name tag pinned to the front. At their hip, Dixon could just make out what looked like a pair of well-loved revolvers, their gloved fingers flexing by the holster. Trailing his binoculars upwards, he was startled when he came across a mask instead of a face. A heavy-duty hazmat mask, from back in the war. A long hose hung from the front of the mask and wrapped around their shoulder to connect to a small tank on their back. And under the duster, now that he was looking for it, he could make out the rest of a full-body hazmat suit, in remarkably good condition.

“Son of a bitch…” Dixon muttered to himself.

“Marshal, sir?” Jimmy asked.

Dixon frowned and lowered his binoculars. “Looks like trouble just rolled into town.” He held out the binoculars for Jimmy to take. “Whaddya think a drifter from ‘round here is doin’, wearing a wartime hazmat suit?”

“…Avoiding hazards, sir?” Jimmy asked.

Dixon scoffed. “Not why he’d want the suit. Where he got it. Suits ‘re only found in war bunkers, and ain’t no way no remnants ‘re headed this far from the Citadels. No, what we’s got is a looter. And a bunker looter, at that.”

Bunker looters were the worst kind of looter, if only because of their boldness. You had to be a certain level of bold to loot the dead, but looting the remnants of the government, that were more likely than not still defended? That was a whole ‘nother level of stupid. Or brutal.

Either way, it wasn’t what Black Sun needed right now. Between the cannibals coming unusually close to an outpost, and now a mysterious drifter arriving on the scene. It gave Dixon a really bad feeling.

Luckily, the sun was just starting to creep below the horizon. It wouldn’t be long now until Dixon and Jimmy snuck up on the camp and took care of the vermin once and for all. Jimmy might’ve been a bit soft in the head ‘bout most things, but he knew how to shoot. Between the two of them, they could clear out a mid-sized camp of cannibals before the Crazies even figured out they were under attack.

He just hoped the drifter wouldn’t be around to cause problems.

***

Ghost dragged Glory through cramped, swelteringly hot tunnels that occasionally widened just enough to be called a hallway, then immediately shrunk back down enough that they had to stoop to get through. And around what felt like each and every corner, there was yet another cannibal with hungry intentions, licking their tusks. Congealed, oxidized blood was splattered about seemingly at random, sometimes gathered in one spot and sometimes leaving trails in the dirt where previous victims had likely been dragged off to their deaths.

They finally reached a larger room, off of one of the tunnels, and Ghost yanked her inside. She stumbled and fell to the dirt floor, and a troglodyte standing by kicked her roughly in the side, causing her synth lungs to seize.

“No!” Ghost barked. “She’s too important!”

Glory groaned as her lung finally reset itself, and she slowly pushed herself onto her hands and knees. She dared to look up around herself, and her mouth dropped open in awe at her new surroundings.

It looked nothing like the rest of the tunnels she’d seen so far—white curtains partitioned the large chamber into smaller, private spaces, each with a metal bed and table; surgical tools and equipment, including scalpels and syringes, were spread across the tables in a neat, methodical pattern, the objects so clean they shone in the dull light. Most of the furniture had obviously been taken from elsewhere — most likely an old world hospital.

Then her gaze landed on the only other figure in the room, and she froze.

Another intelligent cannibal, with equally bone-white skin and hair that hung limp around a sunken, skeletal face. But, as undernourished as he obviously was, this cannibal was clearly just as intelligent as Ghost, peering down at Glory with surprised green eyes. Though he was as shirtless as the rest of them, he wore actual pants and boots instead of a loincloth, with a large leather pouch strapped to his hip, and a pair of old, ragged goggles pushed up on top of his head.

“My brother, Needles,” Ghost introduced the newcomer, and Glory could definitely see the resemblance, though Needles was a fair amount reedier than his brother. “Our healer. And, our torturer. Try to run,” his hand suddenly snapped forward and tangled in her hair, wrenching her head around to face him, “and he will introduce you to agony you could only dream of. Understood?”

“Y—Yes.”

“Good.” He dropped her and turned to Needles. “She is one of the old ones.”

Needles’ brows furrowed and he cocked his head, disbelief writ across his face.

“I know it!” Ghost hissed. “Talk to her. See for yourself. I want every inch of her examined in time for our return. Understood?”

Needles nodded once.

Ghost turned on his heel, marching out of the medical bay and disappearing down the tunnel, followed by his troglodyte companions. It left her and the other intelligent cannibal—Needles—alone in the room.

She turned slowly to face her new jailor, feeling as if her coolant pump were in her throat, no matter how impossible that might’ve been. Needles, for his part, appeared just as surprised as Glory felt. Had he not been expecting to have a guest?

Looking closer at Needles now, it was almost surreal how different he and Ghost were from the actual, animalistic cannibals. If they just wiped off the ridiculous bone dust, and cut and washed their hair, both brothers could likely walk into any outpost or citadel they liked and live as free men. Why, then, did they spend their time squatting in a disgusting, bone- and blood-splattered cavern with a bunch of savage mutants?

“Are you injured?” Needles finally asked, startling Glory out of her thoughts. Like his brother, his voice was softer than Glory might’ve expected. But unlike his brother, every word out of Needles’ mouth didn’t set Glory’s every synapse on edge. In fact, it was almost… soothing.

Glory ignored the sudden urge to relax, and instead nodded stiffly.

Needles offered a small smile, though it did little to calm Glory. “I won’t hurt you. But I need to take a look at you, see if I can’t convince Ghost he’s mistaken. It’s best if you do as I say—for both our sakes.”

“He only brought me here because he thinks I’m special,” Glory said. “If he thinks he’s mistaken, I’ll just be eaten like the others.”

Needles’ brows arched in surprise. At her candidness? But then he frowned apologetically. “Yes,” he agreed simply. “But he… Well, let’s just say there are worse things than death.”

If she could, Glory might have shuddered at his words. Father’s warnings came back to her, about being torn apart for scrap metal.

Still, though, Glory hesitated. She was alone in the room with him; she could attack him and flee, and it’d be an unknown amount of time before Ghost or his cannibals found out.

But something about Needles—the soft, almost gentle tone of his voice; the apparent fear that slipped into it when he spoke of his brother; the pleading look in his eye—stopped her from lashing out like the logical part of her processor screamed at her to.

She instead allowed him to lead her over to one of the examination beds. Stiffly, she climbed onto it and sat facing him, her back ramrod straight, as if she were a soldier standing at attention. And, really, it was no different from her maintenance check-ups back with Father.

Except, Needles didn’t know what she was.

Glory tried to calm herself. She knew, logically, that there was no way to tell from her exterior that she was a machine. Needles would only see an understandably frightened young woman, who had been isolated from her companions by his brother.

That thought did little to calm her, however, as Needles raised the chest piece of a stethoscope to the center of her chest, between her breasts.

The rhythmic beat of her coolant pump sounded almost identical to a human’s heartbeat, unless you knew exactly what to listen for, which she doubted Needles would. Similarly, Glory’s external temperature matched a human’s exactly, minus a degree or so. Her core was much, much hotter, but that temperature was impossible to measure without peeling her chassis open.

Needles listened thoughtfully to the sound of her ‘heartbeat’, and scribbled a few notes on a rough clipboard to his right. He then pressed his fingers to the sides of Glory’s throat, just under her jaw. “Open your mouth, please. As wide as you can.”

Glory obeyed. Needles examined the inside of her mouth, gently rotating her head around. In fact, his touch remained gentle no matter what he was doing or how he was moving Glory around. Far gentler than Father had ever been, at least. He thanked her softly every time she completed a task he asked of her, and he was careful to not look directly into her eyes.

“Why do you do this?” Glory asked suddenly, not realizing she was speaking until the words had already escaped her. It seemed that Needles hadn’t been expecting the question either, as he paused mid-note-taking to stare at her. “It’s clear that you disapprove of your brother’s… methods,” Glory said. “Why are you still here? You could leave, probably easier than I could.”

He shrugged a single shoulder. “It’s my job.”

“What is?”

“Healing.” He sighed, hanging his head. “The cannibals… so many of them died before we came here, of completely preventable injuries and diseases. They would step on a sharp rock and get a cut that wouldn’t heal, and they’d die of infection. Or they’d creep a little too close to a ruined old world bioscience lab and catch a particularly strong strain of influenza. Or they’d trip and fall too deep into a ravine for their brothers to pull them out.” He shook his head. “They’re like children. How could I not want to help them?”

“They eat people!” Glory exclaimed.

“They’re doing what they need to do in order to survive.” Despite his words, the slight waver in his voice suggested that he wasn’t quite as convinced as he might sound. “Wastelanders murder each other for resources every day. How is this any different?”

He turned away, towards a nearby desk, and busied himself laying out a line of surgical tools. Scalpels, a bone saw, and, perhaps ironically, hypodermic needles. It reminded Glory sharply of Father’s laboratory.

Needles turned back to her, something metallic gripped in his hand, and Glory flinched. She lashed out, striking him across the cheek and crawling back, away from him. Needles yelped as he hit the ground, the scalpel in his hand skittering away…

It wasn’t a scalpel. It was a thermometer.

Glory felt unbelievably foolish.

Needles stood up with a grimace, reaching out to retrieve the runaway thermometer. He turned to face Glory, who had frozen when she’d realized what she’d just lashed out over. “Bad memories with a doctor, I take it?”

That’s it? That’s all he was going to say?

“…Something like that,” Glory mumbled.

He sighed. “You don’t feel warm. I’ll just estimate ninety-eight point six.” He continued with his notes as he spoke, humming lowly under his breath.

Glory stared at him. He wasn’t going to force the test on her?

“You’re not going to double-check?” she asked in disbelief.

He sighed and shook his head. “No need to make this more difficult than it needs to be.” He grabbed a tiny penlight and flicked it on. “Focus on the light, please.”

Glory did as she was told, focusing on the light. Her optics automatically adjusted to the light levels pouring into them, giving her the appearance of naturally dilating pupils. Needles tested her eyes, humming under his breath again.

“It looks to me that you’re in perfect health,” he noted. “I’m sorry—I don’t know why my brother thinks… Well, why he would drop you on my doorstep.”

Glory swallowed—a completely unnecessary reflex, but one that Father had hard-programmed into her anyway, presumably to make her appear more human. “Neither do I. He wouldn’t tell me anything.”

Needles let out an amused breath; not quite a snort, but just about. “That sounds like him, all right.” He continued with his notes. “Well, that’s everything I can manage without peeling you open. But if Ghost wanted an autopsy, he would’ve said that.”

Glory stared at him. “Is this how you talk to all your patients?”

He huffed an amused breath again, this time slightly apologetic. “I’m sorry. Most of my patients are barely intelligent enough to understand my commands. I’m… unused to dealing with… actual people. Other than my brother.”

Something told her that Ghost didn’t really count as an ‘actual person’, either.

Needles backed away from her, then, an odd little frown on his face. “If I had to guess, I’d say Ghost will be coming back for you after the midnight meal.”

The corners of Glory’s lips turned down automatically. She wasn’t overly attached to the nomads, but still…

Needles dipped his head. Despite the pale, stringy hair hiding his face like a curtain, Glory could still read uneasy tension on his face. “I’m sorry about your friends,” he murmured, “but you’ll be safe here.”

“Until Ghost comes for me.”

A muscle in his jaw twitched, but before he could respond, a sudden bellow in the tunnel just outside made both of them jump. A band of cannibals lumbered into the infirmary, huffing and grunting under their breath. They appeared to be dragging something heavy with them, though Glory couldn’t tell what it was until they reached one of the infirmary cots and thrust their cargo upon it.

It turned out to be another, unconscious cannibal, slathered in his own blood. His escorts promptly turned and stalked back out of the infirmary, not even throwing a glance behind them at their injured brethren.

Needles immediately leapt into action as soon as they were gone, leaving Glory to watch in bewilderment and surprise as he bustled around the chamber like an expert. Living in a cave didn’t seem to restrain his efficiency, as he retrieved tools and equipment in record time. When his arms were full, he turned to Glory.

“Make yourself useful. Come here.”

Tentatively, Glory stood and approached where he’d come to stand by a rusty filing cabinet. “What?”

“Grab that.” He nodded to a large, searchlight-style lantern stored in the lowest drawer. The red paint had been chipped and worn over the century since the end of humanity’s golden age, but the beam of light shone bright and strong when Glory pressed the button on the handle.

Needles gestured her to a few other items scattered around the infirmary chamber, before they returned to the injured cannibal.

Pulling his goggles down over his eyes, Needles nodded to the lantern in Glory’s hands. “Hold that up, please? Higher.” He continued directing until Glory held the light at just the right angle for him.

Glory could only watch as Needles began his procedure, pulling the ragged cloth away from the source of the blood loss—a series of large, ragged gashes along the cannibal’s torso—and wiping the blood away to reveal the extent of the damage.

“Sets of eight gashes, each approximately six inches long by two inches deep,” Needles reported, though something in his voice suggested to Glory that he wasn’t talking to her. “Ripperbeast claws, if I had to guess.”

“I’m assuming that mauling by ripperbeast isn’t common among cannibals?” Glory asked. After all, cannibals didn’t hunt animals. Not unless you counted humans as animals.

Needles hummed noncommittally. “We’re just lucky ripperbeasts are typically solitary. Can you imagine a whole pack of them?”

“It might be enough to clean out this whole lair,” Glory muttered, though she quickly realized that Needles had overheard her. Still, she couldn’t find it in herself to be embarrassed. “They’re monsters. You’re saving the lives of monsters. Is that really what you want?”

Needles stared determinedly up at her as he began stitching up the deepest of gashes. “I want to save lives. Back before the War, healers used to take an oath to treat anyone who needed it, regardless of morality, righteousness, belief system, or supposed ‘worthiness’. It’s not my place to play god. Or judge, jury, and executioner.”

“Oh, please.” Glory could stop herself from rolling her eyes—a painfully human gesture, but the only one that accurately demonstrated her feelings on the sentiment. “Innocently standing by, responsible for nothing but the recovery of your patients, was a fine sentiment for a doctor in the old world. But now, the stakes are too high. When we have mutants, warlords, and psychopaths crossing the wastes that could bring about a second end of civilization with enough motivation and access to the right Benefactor technology, we can’t afford to be indecisive.”

Needles’s even gaze hardened, turning into a glare. “Then whose criteria should we judge patients by? Mine? Yours? Ghost’s? The tyrants’?” He huffed. “In theory, I might agree with you. In theory. But nothing is ever that simple.”

“Tyrants?” Glory asked.

“The… Benefactors,” he sneered, and nodded to one of the many hypodermic needles lined up along his table. “Now hand me that.”

Glory frowned. “No.”

“Hand. Me. The needle,” he growled, actually sounding quite a bit like his brother for the first time since Glory had met him. She wasn’t sure whether to be angered by his idiotic stubbornness, or impressed by his determination.

“If you want to help people, why don’t you offer your services to the outposts in the region?” she asked instead. “Wastelanders would surely appreciate your efforts more than these… people.”

“We don’t have time to argue about this,” he hissed. “Now hand me the needle.”

Glory met his acidic glare with a cool, even stare, feeling as though she were facing down Father again, nothing but obsession and compulsion in his gaze.

But Needles wasn’t possessed by anything more sinister than the urge to help people. However unworthy his patients might have been, Glory’s programing screamed at her to assist.

Reluctantly, she grabbed the aforementioned needle and held it out to him, watching as he stabbed the needle into the cannibal’s chest and injected its pale pink contents.

“What was that?” Glory asked.

“Homebrew Pseudo-regenerator,” Needles said. “It’ll help close his wounds.”

Glory snorted. “It’s not going to help much, twice removed.”

“It’ll help enough,” Needles snapped.

Glory held up her free hand defensively. “Fine. Sorry.”

Needles huffed a sigh as he turned to stitching up the rest of the deeper gashes. “No… don’t apologize. You’re right.” He tugged the sutures into place a bit harsher than strictly necessary. “If I had proper equipment, and a proper infirmary…”

So, they didn’t disagree on everything; just the things that mattered. Glory wasn’t sure whether that was better or worse.

The chamber remained eerily silent as Needles finished his delicate stitching and set his needles aside. He pushed his goggles back up on top of his head, grabbed an ocular magnifier, and moved to peel back the cannibal’s eyelids when their hulking patient jerked and launched upward into a seated position.

Glory leapt back, the lantern’s beam of light dancing around the chamber. Needles yelped at the sudden movement, and did his best to soothe the cannibal. “Shh. It’s all right.”

The cannibal either didn’t understand him, or didn’t care. He growled and reached out, one massive, meaty hand wrapping around Needles’ throat and tightening. Needles rasped as the cannibal lifted him into the air, his legs kicking ineffectually in the air.

Glory hesitated, her gaze flicking between healer and patient at the speed of light. Save Needles, or simply sit back and watch?

He might’ve been misguided, but he was still more compassionate than anyone else in this lair. Not that that was saying much. But, stepping in might put herself in danger of the cannibal’s wrath.

Save Needles, or sit back and wait? Save Needles, or sit back and wait?

Needles jerked, his eyes rolling back in his head, and Glory came to a decision. A stupid decision, maybe, but a firm one. She grabbed a nearby stool, hefted it over her head, and brought it down hard on the cannibal’s upper back. The mutant yowled at the impact, his tight grip on the healer’s throat loosening. Needles fell to the ground, sputtering and gasping.

With the healer out of harm’s way for the moment, Glory now had to worry about her own safety. And, just as she’d feared, intervening had only drawn the cannibal’s attention. The stool was still in her grip, and it made a fairly decent bludgeon the first time, so she held it high in the air again. She hoped the troglodyte would at least be intelligent enough to understand that.

And, it actually hesitated at the gesture, freezing in place. Sunken, bloodshot eyes blinked dully at her, before cracked lips pulled back in a snarl and it reared back for an attack of its own, no doubt powerful enough to shatter the stool, and possibly Glory’s body as well.

“Don’t!” Needles shouted, stretching a hand out towards the cannibal. On his palm was a circular scar to match his brothers, somehow even redder than Ghost’s, as though infected. For a supposed healer, he wasn’t very good at healing himself, it seemed.

At his command, the cannibal froze mid-swing, its massive fist stopping a few centimeters from Glory’s stool.

“Get out,” Needles commanded. All at once, the cannibal obeyed, relaxing and turning to march out of the infirmary, leaving the two of them alone.

Glory’s tight grip on the stool only loosened when she lost sight of the cannibal around the corner, and she turned to face Needles. Her ‘captor’. He looked about as far from intimidating as physically possible at the moment, slumped against the leg of his work table as he was, and he let his scarred hand fall to his side like a puppet with its strings cut.

Glory set the stool down and approached. “Are you all right?” Slowly, she reached out a hand.

Much to her surprise, he flinched away from the offered hand, squeezing his eyes shut. Glory stared, glancing between him and her outstretched hand. She hadn’t thought she was being aggressive or intimidating. She’d merely been trying to help.

“Are you injured?” she asked instead.

Needles dared to peek an eye open, looking up at her. Shock and surprise crossed his face, before quickly smoothing into blank neutrality. “Er… no. Thank you.” Slowly, timidly, he reached up to accept her hand, letting her yank him to his feet with a surprised squeak, which he tried to cover up with a cough. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lose control of the situation like that.”

Glory scoffed. “It’s hardly your fault. I mean, you can’t exactly reliably control cannibals like that, can you?”

“…No.” He fidgeted, popping his knuckles one by one. “I suppose not.”

“Do they always turn aggressive like that after you’ve helped them?”

“…Not always.”

Glory’s gaze flitted down to his hand, and she tugged it open, revealing the angry red scar. “That looks infec—”

He yanked his hand out of her grip before she could finish the sentence and turned back to his workbench. “Thank you for your concern, but I’m fine,” he insisted. Despite his words, however, his shoulders appeared a bit more hunched than when they’d first met, as though he’d shrunken in on himself.

But why? Did Glory frighten him that much?

She eyed his hand, palm-down on the bench. Curiosity nagged at her; her natural instinct when it came to the unknown. But, ultimately, it didn’t matter. She had bigger things to worry about.

She looked around, and realized that with Needles’ attention elsewhere, there was no one watching her.

Tentatively, Glory slunk to the right, testing his reaction. When he didn’t move, she continued moving to the right, until she was far enough behind him that he’d no longer be able to see her in his peripheral vision. When he still didn’t turn towards her or say anything, she dared to think he was fully distracted with his tools.

He pulled a rag out of a pocket and began polishing a scalpel until it gleamed. Glory took the chance to back away slowly, towards the exit leading out into a rocky tunnel. The same way Ghost had brought her in.

Needles still hadn’t looked in her direction.

Was this a trap?

Admittedly, she’d rather stay there, in the infirmary, with the only other person who could both speak and wasn’t as off-putting as Ghost. Even if it was a trap, it was more appealing than whatever awaited her in the tunnels outside.

But she couldn’t stay. She had to get out. If she didn’t, she’d eventually be found out as an android.

Everything she’d gone through, everything she’d done, would have been for nothing.

Glory hesitated for only a moment longer, gazing back at Needles, before she slunk out into the tunnel.