As far as century-old, ruined apartment buildings went, what was once the C building of Flagstone Acres was in relatively good condition. Mostly-intact walls, an intact roof, and decent ventilation that kept them from cooking alive during the daytime heat and kept out most of the chill at night.

Dixon and Wilkes dragged old mattresses from different units together in the common room to serve as beds, and Dixon took first watch. Hours later, sometime in mid-afternoon, Dixon shook Glory awake.

“You okay taking next watch?” he grunted, jaw tensing as he tried to hide a yawn.

“Well,” she said, sitting up, “even if I wasn’t, I’m awake now. I won’t be able to get back to sleep.”

He winced. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” She stood to take his seat by the door, only to pause when Dixon grabbed her forearm. Gently enough that, even if she were purely human, she likely could’ve shrugged him off. But the intensity of his gaze kept her still as she waited for him to say whatever was clearly on his mind.

Finally, after a few long seconds of impatience, he blurted, “You and the kid okay?” He nodded towards their sleeping companions. “Needles, I mean.”

Glory’s brows furrowed. “Needles? What about him?”

He sighed harshly. “I mean, I’ve seen you two. Awfully cozy.” He held up his free hand, almost defensively. “Look, I’m not judging. Lord knows everyone’s entitled to their dumb decisions. Jus’… Jus’ make sure this is one you really wanna make.”

“Is this about him being a former cannibal again?” Glory asked, scowling. “I thought we were past that.”

He winced uncomfortably, but didn’t look outright hostile. So… progress? “Nah. Needles is… He’s weird, but he’s all right. I’m more worried ‘bout how different you two are.”

“Different?” Glory cocked her head. “How?”

“Please don’t make me give relationship advice,” Dixon muttered under his breath, before clearing his throat and shaking his head. “Look. He’s… sorta soft ’n’ gentle ’n’… well-meanin’. An’ you’re… I dunno how to put this nicely.”

“Don’t bother.” Glory tugged her arm free, shaking her head. “I know what I am, Dixon. So does Needles. If he found our differences as off-putting as you seem to think he should, I doubt we’d be here.”

Dixon frowned, but nodded. “Guess you’re right. Jus’… be careful, okay, kid? Don’ wan’ either of you gettin’ hurt.”

Glory huffed a breath, but she couldn’t entirely fault him. Because, honestly, the thought of Needles getting hurt, even by her, made her recoil. So, instead, she merely nodded.

Dixon nodded once, rubbing at the scarred skin of his right wrist. “That’s all I ask. Don’t stay up too late, kid.”

He moved to step around her, to return to his own dedicated mattress, but froze when Glory asked, “What happened to your wrist?”

“What d’you mean?”

She nodded to his right wrist. “I’ve seen the scars. What happened?”

He hesitated, and Glory worried he was about to deny it. Or worse, lie to her. But then he slumped, almost deflating, and asked, “Have you ever heard of a personnel monitor?”

Glory frowned. Father might’ve mentioned the phrase once or twice, but never often enough for Glory to understand it. He’d certainly said it with vitriol, however, all but snarling the words every time he mentioned them. Finally, she said. “Vaguely.” And, after a moment, she admitted, “My father mentioned them once or twice.”

“I’m guessin’ he wasn’t too fond of them, was he?”

Glory shook her head.

He nodded. “Didn’t think so. Look, personnel monitors are how the Benefactors keep track of their people, and keep them in line. They track their vitals, their location in the city, they can record video and audio at random to deter dissent. And, if necessary, they dispense punishment.”

“Punishment?”

“Electric shocks,” he spat. “Weak at first; just enough to hurt. Disobey the Benefactors orders frequently enough, though, even by accident, and they get stronger each time, until your heart stops. They don’t care. They have enough bodies. But the worst part—” His voice cracked, and he took a deep breath. “The worst part is, they’re implanted under the skin. Easier to detect pulse and blood oxygenation levels. Makes them harder to remove, too.”

In a horrific sort of way, it did make sense. Glory looked down to Dixon’s wrist again, and noted how they had the gnarled appearance of a series of rough, haphazard slices. “So you… cut yours out?”

“Yeah, I did,” he sniffed. “An’ I’m guessin’ everyone else who’s ever escaped a citadel has, too. Did your daddy have a scar on his wrist?”

Glory thought back to Father—to his perfectly long sleeves, and perfectly tight cufflinks. “I don’t know,” she said. “I never saw his wrists.”

Dixon huffed. “Definitely from the upper levels. They were always so buttoned up.” He rubbed at his scarred wrist. “It hurt like hell, taking it out. But I’ll tell ya, I’d do it again in a heartbeat. I never wanna wear one of those things again.”

Glory nodded once. “I feel the same way. My… My father wanted to control me. Ironic, I would say.”

“Nah, I don’t think it’s ironic,” Dixon said dismissively. “Shitty people come from all walks o’ life. Jus’ ‘cause they’ve had shitty lives themselves, don’t mean they ain’t gonna be shitty to other people, too.”

No wonder humans were all so disappointing, if they took joy in inflicting the same pain on each other that they themselves had experienced. But Glory didn’t say any of that, of course.

Their difficult conversation evidently concluded, Dixon smiled at her. “Gray Hawk c’n prob’ly take next watch, whenever you wanna get some more shut-eye.” He wagged a finger at her, as though she were a dog. Or a child. But he didn’t do it in Father’s condescending manner; more fondly teasing than anything. “No more’n a few hours, now, y’hear? I don’t want you working yourself to exhaustion.”

“Yes, Father,” Glory grumbled, not even realizing what she was saying until the words were already out of her mouth. She flinched, but Dixon hadn’t seemed to notice, simply wandering over to his own dedicated mattress and lying down to rest.

Glory stared down at her own wrist, and ran her fingers across the unmarred skin. Her nanites didn’t produce scar tissue. She hadn’t been fitted with the same kind of monitor that Dixon had. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t being monitored.

Had Father been inspired by the Benefactors? Had he fitted her with a monitor she didn’t know about? Or was she just being paranoid? The sudden sensation of being watched made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, and she whirled around to look behind her.

It could’ve simply been a trick of the light, but she thought she saw Gray Hawk’s eyes open ever so slightly for a second, before she blinked and they were shut. He was lying on his back, but soft snores escaped him as his chest rose and fell.

Had he been listening in on their conversation?

Glory shuddered and stopped by her pack on her way over to Dixon’s seat by the door, pausing just long enough to retrieve her chess set. She laid the board out across a makeshift table by her side, and settled in to watch the sun’s slow journey across the sky.

She wouldn’t be waking Gray Hawk. He needed his sleep, and Glory didn’t. Not as much, anyway. And, as the newest member of their band of six, Glory trusted him the least.

But concerns over who could take the next watch could wait. For now, she had a game against Father’s specter; one which she was determined to win. She set her proximity alarms on forward-facing high-alert, and waited.

***

When dusk at last came upon them, Gray Hawk was the first of Glory’s companions to awaken. Being alone with a veritable stranger was… odd. It shouldn’t have been, given how basically everyone in that room had been a stranger not so long ago. But it was incredible how traveling through the badlands with someone could familiarize them to you.

Gray Hawk yawned, stretched, then almost immediately laid eyes on Glory’s chess set. He snorted under his breath as he stood, but surprisingly refrained from making any snide remarks as he went to work building a small fire at the center of the room.

With the warmth and light from the crackling fire seeping into every dark corner of the room, the rest of their group began to awaken as well. First Needles, then Centauri, then Wilkes sat up as though their spine were spring-loaded. Dixon was, unsurprisingly, the last to awaken. He shot an annoyed look in Glory’s direction when he first set bleary eyes on her, still by the door.

“So much for no more’n a few hours,” he grumbled.

Glory shrugged. “I lost track of time.” When Dixon’s glare didn’t lessen any, she snapped, “I’m fine, Dixon.”

Needles came to stand in front of her. Or, more accurately, in front of the chessboard. He gazed at the board for a long minute; at the half-finished game Glory had been playing against herself, and leaned down to move one of black’s rooks, cleverly countering the check white had on black’s king.

Glory leaned back and gazed admirably at the game. It was, admittedly, a little annoying to be so easily bested by a human, but unlike in her games against Father, losing to Needles didn’t make Glory’s very being sting with humiliation.

Needles beamed at her proudly.

“Okay, kids,” Dixon called from the center of the room. “Enough chess flirting. We’ve got work to do.”

Needles’ cheeks turned red at Dixon’s words, and even Glory was left feeling a little awkward. For a lack of anything else to do, she grabbed the chess set and stuffed it into her pack. Her memory would allow her to perfectly set up the same game again later, anyway.

With her pack now thrown over one shoulder, she came to join the others at the center of the room, where Gray Hawk and Dixon were already murmuring to each other. Upon her and Needles’ approach, however, Gray Hawk cleared his throat and addressed the rest of the room.

“I think we should focus on our next steps.” He held his hands out to the fire as though to warm them, despite some of the day’s heat still lingering in the air. Maybe he was just… preparing?

Glory didn’t understand desert folk.

“I’m assuming you have ideas,” Dixon said.

Gray Hawk nodded. “The mutants have other prisoners. And, I think they’re still alive.”

“How would you know?” Needles asked, brows furrowed.

Gray Hawk gazed evenly into the flame, his expression barely twitching. “I don’t,” he admitted, “but just from the way the cultists’ leader talked about us…” He shook his head. “Like we were valuable. Me more than the others, yes: he had other plans for me. But the others… He ordered the raiders acting as their escort to treat them well, and that the ‘Order’ would not be happy if they were ‘damaged’.”

All eyes flew to Needles, who shrunk under the sudden attention but dutifully dove into an attempt at an explanation. “The Order did occasionally take prisoners when my brother and I lived among them—not often, mind you, and mostly for minor construction or mining projects. But…” He shook his head, and turned to Gray Hawk. “How many were there? Besides you, I mean.”

Gray Hawk wore a frown, but he answered, “At least forty.”

Dixon let out a low whistle, and even Centauri shuffled uncomfortably on his mattress.

Needles shook his head. “That many prisoners at once was practically unheard of when I was there. I don’t—” He sighed harshly. “I don’t know what they’re planning.”

Glory pushed off her seat by the door and shuffled over to flop down beside Needles. He jumped at her sudden proximity, but relaxed when he realized who it was.

“…All right,” Gray Hawk said slowly. “Was anyone going to tell me that Mr. Cannibal also has cultist insider knowledge?” His glare was downright venomous.

Needles swallowed, gazing at the floor. “My brother and I were members of the—we were cultists once.”

Gray Hawk nodded once, expectantly. “…And?”

“We were cast out. Or, no, he was cast out. I followed him.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. The point is, I haven’t been a part of the Order in a long time.”

Gray Hawk looked to Dixon, as if for confirmation, and received a nod.

“Hey, I don’t understand it, but he’s a good kid.” Dixon shrugged. “Not like he asked to be born into their weird-ass cult.”

“Guess not.” Gray Hawk rubbed at his forehead, his eyelids drooping. “Anyway, the other prisoners were moved. Not sure where to. The leader kept talking about retribution. That word specifically. Retribution. It… It’s possible he was just being flowery, but I’m thinking it means something specific.” He looked to Needles. “Ring any bells, cannibal boy?”

Needles glared at the floor. “My name is Needles.”

“Didn’t answer my question, Needles.”

Needles’ shoulders slumped. “No. Nothing.”

Gray Hawk blew out a harsh breath. “So… no idea what it could be.”

“No.” Needles rested his chin on his knees.

Dixon looked to Glory. “Didn’t you manage to find something on the facility’s computers?”

Glory tensed at the sudden number of eyes on her, but forced herself to relax. There were perfectly normal, human ways of accessing computer terminals, after all. “Yes, but… the information was fragmented. Damaged. Most of it had been deleted.” She shrugged. “The little bit that was left was from the old world; just before the end of the war. And there was a message from the Red Mountain facility, reporting a ‘Roswell incident’. Does anyone know what that means?”

Her companions all shook their heads. Except for Centauri, who appeared to be thinking very hard about something.

Glory wasn’t the only one to notice Centauri’s deep concentration, as Dixon nudged him gently in the arm and asked, “You okay, kid?”

He startled at the contact, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Yeah. Yes. I’m fine.”

“You sure?” Dixon asked. “C’mon, spit it out. What’s got ya all pensive?”

Centauri frowned lightly. “I was just thinking… I’ve heard that word before. Roswell.”

“It’s a place to the east,” Gray Hawk said dismissively “Some old world town. I don’t see how that—”

“No, not just a town,” Centauri protested. “There was something in that bookstore about Roswell, but I can’t remember it now…”

“Well, keep at it,” Dixon said gently. “Maybe it’ll come to you.”

Frustration knotted between Centauri’s brows, but he didn’t answer, too deep in thought.

“We might not need Roswell, though,” Dixon continued, earning looks from the others. “I was thinking… I think that, wherever the cultists are takin’ people, it’s in the north-east.”

“Why?” Gray Hawk asked with a frown.

Dixon fumbled around for something to write with, before settling on scratching roughly into the ground with the end of his knife hilt. Glory noticed Gray Hawk and Centauri both eyeing the knife several times throughout Dixon’s sketch, though he said nothing.

The knife itself appeared to be carved out of bone and, judging by its weathered appearance, was at least a century old. Certainly a unique weapon, but hardly noteworthy enough to justify Gray Hawk’s immense fascination with it.

At the end, Dixon had the rough approximation of a map etched lightly into the floor, under the layer of sand that covered it. He sheathed the knife once more and sat back, gesturing to his handiwork. “Obviously not to scale, but here we are. Black Sun,” he pointed to the most south-westward circle, “Sanctum Mesa,” slightly north and east, “the wind farm,” slightly north and farther east, “and we’re somewhere in here,” a smaller circle right next to the wind farm.

He shifted around and pointed to the Black Sun circle again. “We’re reasonably sure that Black Sun was hit first. There’s something funky goin’ on with that attack, too, but we’ll deal with that later. Anyhow, Black Sun gets hit, an’ the raiders take everyone younger’n sixty. We set out about a day after they left, an’ got to Sanctum Mesa not long after it got hit. The perimeter was down, which led us to the wind farm ‘bout a day later.”

Gray Hawk nodded to all the information, though he wore a frown. “Fine. How does any of this lead us northeast?”

Dixon held up a finger. “I’m gettin’ to that part. Centauri said the village you were taken from was pretty close to the triple-N border. ’S that true?”

Gray Hawk nodded and leaned forward to gesture to the map as well. “It’s not far from here, actually. About…” He pointed ever so slightly north-west from the wind farm and their current location.

“So they wouldn’t have had to go too far out of their way to grab you,” Dixon said. He nodded northeast of the wind farm. “Do you know what’s up that way?”

“Just some old mines.” Gray Hawk shrugged, looking as bewildered as Glory felt. “Most of them ran dry years ago, from what I’ve heard. Why would they care?”

Dixon, scowling, shook his head. “I don’t know, but I doubt it’s any good.”

“That is, assuming they really are headed northeast,” Needles noted. “You have to admit that so far it’s mostly just conjecture.”

Dixon didn’t argue, but he sighed, rolling his shoulders as if they were sore. “Look, do any of you have a better idea?”

No one answered.

Dixon nodded. “That’s what I thought. Now, if I’m right, then they’ve been moving all their prisoners that way, they probably have it locked down tight, too. Meanin’ it’d be suicide to run in there alone.”

“Because storming the wind farm with just the five of us wasn’t?” Glory asked disbelievingly.

Dixon grimaced and shifted in place. “That was different, kid. We had no idea what we’d be running into.”

Perhaps not, but they could’ve guessed. But, she supposed it had all worked out well. Better than they could’ve hoped, in fact—they hadn’t lost anyone, and had in fact added to their group.

Still, unease burrowed into Glory’s processor, mild and buried but inescapable.

Gray Hawk cleared his throat softly, drawing everyone’s attention. “About the numbers issue… If we head back to Rustpike we might be able to convince them to help us.”

“Rustpike?” Dixon asked.

“Our village,” Centauri mumbled. “But I’m not sure if they’d listen.”

Gray Hawk shuffled ever so slightly, discomfort stiffening his shoulders, but he refused to show it, keeping his expression carefully blank. “They’ll help us,” he said, sounding as though he were trying to convince himself more than everyone else. “They must.”

Glory was still skeptical, however. These people hadn’t even believed Gray Hawk had been taken against his will, which didn’t paint them in a terribly flattering light in her mind. Why would they help now?

But Gray Hawk looked determined, and his apparent certainty seemed to be raising Centauri’s spirits. Plus, Dixon already looked convinced, nodding along almost immediately.

Well, Glory acknowledged that they would know the village better than she did, but more prudent questions flooded Glory’s processor. “How far is this village?”

“Not far.” Gray Hawk nodded vaguely northwards. “Maybe a four-hour walk that way.”

“Then we should get movin’,” Dixon said, nodding to the rest of their group. “Pack up whatever you can carry. I wanna be at this village before midnight.”

They went to work searching the rest of the apartment building, stripping the units apart to find any hidden supplies. While most of the building’s valuables had been picked clean by prior visitors, they were able to find a few things worth taking them them; some food and water left behind in a long-abandoned emergency stash (judging by the layer of dust on top), a flashlight with batteries included, a switchblade small enough to fit inside Glory’s boot.

At the end of it all, they turned northward and headed out, trusting Gray Hawk and Centauri to lead them to their destination. Glory just hoped that they wouldn’t regret it.

***

Elsewhere,

“Monsignor?” Tasha’s voice was as soft and timid as it always was, but there was a certainty underlying her words—she had something important to say.

Taurus turned to face her, taking in her delicate features and soft blonde hair. She looked so much like her mother. “Yes, my dear? Have you news?”

She nodded once. “We may have a lead.” She paused, as if to gauge Taurus’ reaction, and continued. “Nothing concrete, sir, but—”

“Please, Tasha, don’t waste my time.”

She flinched. “Yes, Monsignor.” Inhaling, she squared her shoulders, standing ever-so-slightly taller. “I saw a man, to the north, through the broken valley, at the old world residences. He looked like the human-cannibal the madman described.”

Taurus suppressed a pleased smirk. “Excellent. Tell the men to get ready to move. We march immediately.”

He turned to leave, but Tasha’s voice stopped him in his tracks. “There’s more, sir!”

“More?”

She stepped closer, not looking at him this time. Instead, the ground had suddenly grown far more fascinating. Despite her lack of eye contact, however, her voice was strong. “It—My memories are… vague, but he… I think he was Scorp—”

“No.”

Taurus’ voice was cold, harsh. But he had no choice—he couldn’t allow her to bring back those memories, if only for the pain when this interloper inevitably proved to not be what he seemed.

Tasha flinched again, but she uncharacteristically did not back down. “I know what I saw, Father! And I know who the man was!”

Pain spiked through him, but Taurus suppressed it, as was his duty. “Enough. Return to your post. We will investigate this man together.”

Her nostrils flared in obvious anger, but she said nothing, merely turning to march back to the rest of the congregation gathered. A few members of the madman clans, enraged at the deaths of their own, had joined them, but the Order had no room for outsiders, and they made that clear. It led to a defined split between the two groups, united by a common goal and little else.

Taurus suppressed his displeasure at the sight; at the knowledge that they were inviting these… beings into their most holy of sites. But he did his best to remind himself of his oath—serve the greater good above all else. The rest could be forgiven.

Even as he announced their new orders to his congregation, however, Taurus couldn’t suppress a mix of anticipation and dismay, fueled by Tasha’s insistence.

He didn’t dare to hope. But, if he did…

No. Scorpius was dead. It was long time his heart and mind accepted that knowledge.