A few days later…

If you were to walk through the western Arizona desert after dark, as most did, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone camping by the side of the road. Nighttime was prime travel time, after all, since the scorching sun was safely under the horizon during its reign.

But, it was on the side of what had once been the interstate 40 where a small campfire crackled merrily, surrounded by six eclectic individuals, five of whom were listening in rapt attention as an aging Native American man finished a dramatic story.

“—And the welder was never seen or heard from again!”

Dixon and Centauri laughed uproariously, Needles chuckled lightly, and even Wilkes’ shoulders appeared to be shaking in mirth. Glory, though—the only woman of the group—just looked confused.

“I don’t get it,” she said blandly.

“She doesn’t get it!” Centauri squealed, which just sent the rest of them into hysterics all over again.

Glory pouted and sat back on her heels. Only when her companions’ laughter died down a bit did she speak. “Are you finished?”

“For now,” Dixon croaked, still chuckling lightly as he leaned into the older man’s side. “Okay, Gray Hawk is officially on storytelling duty from now on. You’re too good at it.”

Gray Hawk smiled tenderly at Dixon. “Oh, if you insist.”

Centauri made exaggerated retching noises into the scraggly bushes.

Needles sighed and leaned into Glory, tipping his head into her neck. “So… where to next? Dixon, didn’t you mention a town with a greenhouse?”

Dixon nodded roughly south from their current position. “‘Bout a day’s walk that way. Last I heard, they were having jittermouse troubles.”

“Pest control?” Glory asked in disbelief. “Isn’t that a little under our skillset?”

Dixon snorted. “How about so many of ‘em they were makin’ walls an’ bridges out of their bodies, like a fuzzy, squeaking little termite mound?”

Glory grimaced at the description, but Dixon could see the intrigue in her gaze. Jittermice were common, yes, and even tended to gather in large family packs, but they weren’t exactly prone to swarming together thousands-at-a-time.

Just then, however, a noise a few feet away sent them all scrambling for their weapons. After all, on the road you slept light and had a fast trigger finger, or you died.

Wilkes whipped their twin revolvers up first, but Dixon was quick to follow, and barked out, “Who’s there?”

“Easy,” an unfamiliar male voice crooned from out of the darkness. “We mean you no harm.”

Dixon squinted. He could make out the slightest hint of a humanoid figure at the edge of the fire’s light, but not much more than that. “Drop your weapons an’ come a lil’ closer, where we can see you. If I see a single gun, a knife, a goddamn screwdriver held in a threatening manner, we will shoot. Understood?”

“Perfectly.” The man cleared his throat. “But, ah… we aren’t armed, gentlemen. And lady.”

Dixon snorted. Not armed, in the badlands. Right. And Dixon was the president of the New Confederate State of Americana. “Okay, pal. C’mon out.”

A second’s hesitation, then soft footsteps crept closer. Dixon counted four strangers; so at least they outnumbered them.

The first of the strangers came into view, and Dixon was immediately struck by how clean he was. His friends, too, once the light hit them as well. Not a single scar on any of them, and they all seemed to be wearing neat, city slicker-type suits; the kind with the stiff, high collar and sleeves so tight it was a miracle if they never ripped a seam.

Except, what would a quad of Citizens be doing so far away from the nearest citadel? Dixon sure as hell hadn’t heard a transport nearby, and as far as he knew, those didn’t stop between cities, either.

“Who are you?” Gray Hawk demanded. “What do you want?”

“Easy there, gentlemen,” the strangers’ leader purred. “We just want to talk.”

“So talk, then,” Dixon growled.

The man decided to introduce himself. “My name is Richard Van Eyck, and I recently found myself a duly-appointed Scion of Justice to our benevolent patrons over at Reza City.”

“‘Scion of Justice’, huh?” Dixon asked dryly. “That’s a new one.”

“It is, indeed,” Van Eyck replied cheerfully, clasping his hands in front of him. The motion revealed the tiniest glint of metal on the inside of his right wrist, and it made Dixon frown, though Van Eyck didn’t seem to notice. “It is an exquisite opportunity we’ve been granted. Oh where are my manners?” He gestured to his companions. “These are my deputies: Valence, Charlemagne, and Max.”

Deputy. That word still made Dixon twitch occasionally, but he managed to suppress the reflex. The three of them didn’t look like anything terribly special, and Dixon got the impression they generally left the thinking to Van Eyck.

Gray Hawk cleared his throat. “Well, Scion and deputies, what can we do for you? I’m guessing you didn’t walk halfway through the desert just to have a friendly chat with my friends an’ I.”

“No, sir, we didn’t.” Van Eyck straightened up, the little mirthful smirk on his face fading. “My deputies and myself have been following the trail of an especially dangerous criminal for the past few weeks, and we wanted to warn all of you fine, upstanding wastelanders, lest ye find yourself caught up in her chaos.”

“Criminal, huh?” Dixon asked. “Well, we ain’t seen no one on this road in a good couple’a days, so you’re probably in the wrong place.”

“What did this ‘criminal’ do, exactly?” Glory asked, quirking a skeptical brow at him.

Van Eyck’s gaze flitted over to her, back to Dixon, then snapped back to her in a double-take. His mouth opened a fraction, then shut again, and he shook his head. Stammering, he said, “Sh—She assaulted a senior researcher at A—Anthem City.”

Glory froze.

Anthem City, up north. Where Glory had come from.

They wouldn’t… But, Van Eyck wasn’t very good at hiding his tells. They were after her. They just hadn’t realized it at first.

The tension rose until it was so thick in the air you could’ve cut it with a knife. Glory looked to be on the verge of either bolting or shorting out, and Needles’ hand in hers didn’t appear to be helping. Out of the corner of his gaze, Dixon could see Centauri and Wilkes reaching for their guns as slowly and subtly as they could.

Van Eyck’s gaze remained firmly on Glory, and his entire expression changed, from casual, smarmy charm to high alert. “Gentlemen,” he said softly, “I don’t mean to alarm you, but I need all of you to get to your feet and move away from your lady friend.”

Glory opened her mouth to respond, but Needles beat her to it. “And why would we do that?” he asked, echoing Dixon’s sentiments exactly.

Van Eyck’s goons started backing away, half-crouched like they just realized a ripperbeast had managed to corner them. Van Eyck himself managed a little more composure than them, but the tension in his expression was palpable. “Please, please… I know you have no reason to trust me, but I’m trying to help you.” He pointed directly at Glory. “That woman is a dangerous, volatile, and highly illegal experimental Janssen-series android. It assaulted its own creator, and it could turn on any of you at any time.”

Glory sat up on her knees, well and truly looking ready to run for it. Only Needles’ iron grip kept her in place.

“If you allow us,” Van Eyck continued, “we have the tools we need to resolve the situation safely. Without anyone getting hurt.”

Right, Dixon thought viciously. ‘Not armed’, my ass.

Abruptly—so suddenly it made Dixon and most of the others jump—Gray Hawk started laughing. Loud, painful-sounding cackles that heaved out of his throat. If Dixon hadn’t become intimately acquainted with the sound of Gray Hawk’s warm, genuine laugh during their little gang’s time on the road together, he might’ve actually believed it, too.

Van Eyck looked startled at the sudden mirth, but it seemed to have succeeded in easing some of the tension in the air.

“Good one, boys!” Gray Hawk chortled. “An android. That’s a first. What, did she claw her way out of an Iron Graveyard?” He continued laughing, shaking his head. Damn, but Dixon had never given Gray Hawk credit for his acting chops. Slightly awkwardly, Centauri joined in with the laughing, but Needles, Glory, and Dixon stayed looking at each other.

Do we attack? Grab the ship and run for it? Laugh it off and convince Van Eyck they had the wrong gal?

Unfortunately, Van Eyck made the decision for them. He scowled at Gray Hawk, and turned that scowl onto Glory. “Fine. I’ll show you. JNS-4308-17, commence emergency shutdown, code alpha-1-Janssen.”

Glory’s head jerked violently to one side, and she let out a noise that could only be described as ‘robotic gurgling’, but she didn’t shutdown. At least, that’s what Dixon assumed was supposed to happen.

Fear flitted across Van Eyck’s face, and he stammered, “But—But he said—he said it’d work!”

Glory turned an incensed, borderline-murderous glare onto him. “Who told you that code?”

“M-My—My handler. A—A—At Reza.”

“You’re lying.” Glory stood up, prompting the rest of them to stand up as well. She paid no attention to them, however, and if real androids had been equipped with eye-lasers like the ones in the old comics Dixon once uncovered, Van Eyck would’ve been a smoldering pile of ash by then. “Who. Told. You. That. Code?”

Van Eyck hesitated for a second, then signaled his goons.

Immediately, they whipped guns seemingly out of thin air, leaving Dixon’s group scrambling. Luckily, they had the advantage of control over the only light source, and Wilkes immediately snuffed it out, leaving them all in the dark. Van Eyck’s goons still squeezed off a few shots, but luckily most of them missed.

One nicked Dixon’s leg, but it just barely grazed him. Still, you’re never prepared to be shot, and he let out a pained yelp.

Scuffling, Van Eyck’s goons shouting in the darkness, more gunshots. Thankfully, none of the voices sounded familiar. Dixon just prayed that meant his family was safe.

Then, the deafening, beautiful roar of the ship’s engines as it lurched out of the sand where Glory had somehow managed to stash it out of sight. It didn’t exactly have headlights, but its hull flashed purple and white fast enough to blind Van Eyck and his goons—and the rest of them, to be honest, but they at least knew to dive for cover.

Glory opened fire on everyone still standing, and Van Eyck and his goons hit the ground hard, smoking craters where their hearts and lungs should’ve been.

Dixon let out a slow breath. “Everyone all right?” he called. Another, relieved breath escaped him when he heard a chorus of agreements from all his companions. Well, except for Wilkes, but they popped up over the ridge and waved almost as soon as the shooting stopped.

The ship rumbled back down to the ground and landed with a low thud. Glory was getting better at piloting, but judging by the conversations Dixon overheard between her and Needles, she was still having trouble compensating for all the systems that had once been run by the ship’s on-board AI. The one Glory had somehow overwritten.

She might’ve said it like a complaint, but Dixon got the impression she appreciated the challenge. She certainly didn’t drive like someone with no idea what they were doing when their lives were on the line.

The hatch spun open, the ramp descended, and Glory stepped down to join them. Her gaze, of course, immediately went to Needles, though she looked to the others when he raised a reassuring hand.

“All good?” Gray Hawk asked again, as if he couldn’t quite believe it. Another round of affirmatives calmed him considerably.

Glory set off across the sand to Van Eyck’s still form. “This was a warning.” As she crouched down at Van Eyck’s body, in the light of the waxing, shattered moon, Dixon could just make out a shadow of pensiveness on her face.

“A warning?” Dixon asked, coming to stand across from her. “A warning of what?”

“That they’ve got their eye on us,” Gray Hawk sighed. “She’s right.”

Dixon turned his confused frown onto the older man. “What? But… why would they warn us? Why not just carpet-bomb us and leave it at that?”

“You never got your hands on any high-ranking declassified files, did you?” Gray Hawk asked.

Dixon’s frown deepened. He hadn’t. The highest rank he’d ever achieved in Reza had been a third-level security guard. Important enough to be allowed to patrol most of the city levels unsupervised, and that was about it.

Gray Hawk continued, “It’s part of the propaganda machine. They warn us, so they can tell their citizens that they were just pursuing a group of fugitives. They’ll probably spin a story about how we hit a transport from Angel City.” He nodded to the ship.

Glory glared thunderously at Van Eyck’s body, even as she nodded along to Gray Hawk’s words. “My Father talked about the propaganda machine sometimes. It didn’t happen often, but every so often, someone from Anthem City would stop in for the night, and every time they realized He was that Dr. Matthias Janssen, they called him a mass murderer.” She cocked her head. “My Father is many things, but a mass murderer is not one of them. If only because humans aren’t nearly interesting enough to catch and keep His attention.”

“Wonderful,” Centauri grumbled. “So, now what?”

“Now, we find out if they had anything on them.” She leaned forward to rummage through Van Eyck’s pockets, and as she did so, nodded to one of Van Eyck’s goons, lying just as dead as his boss a few feet away. “Wilkes, you might want to check that one. I think I saw a revolver just before the light went out.”

They went to check the aforementioned man, and indeed pulled out a revolver and a cartridge of bullets. They gleefully pocketed the discovery and went on to searching the rest of the body, pulling out what looked like a cigarette pack.

Strange. Cigarettes weren’t permitted in the citadels. Public health risk, and all that. So why would someone working for the Benefactors be carrying cigarettes? For barter?

Glory rummaged through Van Eyck’s pockets and came up surprisingly empty-handed. In response, Dixon nodded to Van Eyck’s wrists. “Think I saw something shiny ‘round his right wrist. Check it out.”

Her brows furrowed, but she obliged, pulling out his wrist. And, tucked under the rim of his cuffs, there was indeed something shiny and metallic. Glory’s brows arched in surprise.

Dixon chuckled. “I noticed something you didn’t? How’d that happen, kid?”

“I was a bit distracted, Dixon,” she sighed. She snapped Van Eyck’s cufflinks and rolled up his sleeves, revealing a shiny metal personnel monitor on his wrist.

On the outside of his wrist.

“I didn’t think they still had external monitors,” Gray Hawk said, evidently just as surprised and confused as Dixon felt.

“Me, neither,” Dixon agreed. At Glory’s confused look, Dixon rolled up his right sleeve, revealing the ugly, scarred skin. “Remember this? That’s basically the same as what I had to rip out, ‘cept it’s on top of the skin.”

Glory’s brows furrowed, and she reached for the clasp.

“Wait!” Gray Hawk yelped. “Don’t take it off. If it senses it’s been removed, it’ll wipe whatever’s on the chip.”

“So… what do we do?” she asked. “Is there a way to access it like this?”

“I think so.” Gray Hawk leaned over to fiddle with the monitor’s tiny buttons. Dixon let him—between the three of them, he was the expert on Benefactor technology, after all.

A soft beep emanated from the monitor, and a miniature holoprojector displayed a simple message.

Citizen deceased. Contact Reza City Bureau of Statistics

Statistics. It was a funny sorta irony, in a way. In the end, that’s all Van Eyck really was: a statistic. The Benefactors sure as hell weren’t gonna miss him, and it was only a matter of time until any family he had back at Reza had their memories of him suppressed in order to ‘promote harmony and peace’.

That was the legacy people who died in the citadels got to enjoy; being erased. If they were lucky, they might live on in a record here and there, of noteworthy citizens and their endeavors. But what did it matter when no one visited those records or monuments. Why would they, without memories of the people whose names are listed there?

Dixon shook his head. No point in getting worked up again. The important thing was, he was out. He’d managed to escape. He focused back in on the task at hand.

Needles had joined them at some point, sitting next to Glory. He, Glory, and Gray Hawk were all sort of hovering over Van Eyck’s wrist, and judging by Glory and Gray Hawk’s mutterings, they were trying to find a way to remove the chip without risking the data on it.

“If we just…” Gray Hawk keyed something in on the tiny keypad, and the monitor let out a shrill beep. Not for the first time, Dixon wished he knew a little more about Benefactor technology. As it was, all he could do was sit back and hope the others knew what they were doing.

After the monitor finished its shrieking, Gray Hawk nodded to the tiny seam along the monitor’s edge. “Can you pry that open?”

Glory slid the tip her thumbnail under the monitor’s case and pried. The material popped apart easily enough—though maybe it just looked easy in Glory’s hands.

Almost immediately after the monitor was opened, it began shrieking again, this time seeming louder and more insistent. Glory pried the casing open a little wider, and Gray Hawk barked, “Now!”

Needles, with a tiny pair of tweezers pulled from one of his many pockets, swooped in and yanked out something tiny, only slightly bigger than a grain of sand. Leaning in a little closer, Dixon could see that it was some kind of microscopic computer chip.

“Don’t breathe,” Glory warned. “We don’t want to risk corroding the pins before I get a look at it.”

“Are you sure about this?” Gray Hawk asked. “I mean, is it even compatible with your brain?”

Glory frowned at the tiny speck clutched in Needles’ tweezers, and said, “I guess we’ll see.”

She unsheathed her knife from its new hiding spot in her boot, reached up to her own head, and sliced off a chunk of her skin on her forehead, revealing her shiny silver chassis.

Dixon grimaced. Even though she’d reassured them over and over that she didn’t feel pain, it still looked horrible. Silvery coolant dripped all over the knife, Glory’s fingers, her hair, and her clothes. The color was the only thing that made it even slightly bearable. If it had been red—maybe to make it easier for her to blend in with humans—Dixon was pretty sure he would’ve passed out.

Skinning yourself. The thought made Dixon shudder.

Glory, unlike the rest of them, looked completely serene as she pried open a tiny port over her right eye, retrieved the speck from Needles, and inserted it directly into her skull.

Her eyelids began fluttering rapidly, almost like she was having a seizure. But neither Needles nor Gray Hawk looked concerned, so Dixon tried to push down his own anxieties. After a moment, the fluttering stopped, and her jaw flexed.

“What do you see?” Needles asked, leaning forward to take her hand. Her fingers twitched, then tightened around his. When she spoke, her voice was more machine-like than Dixon was used to, metallic and echoing, with a hint of static underlying her words.

“Dr. Matthias Janssen made contact with citadel officials in Anthem City, reporting his success with the interdicted Project Replica and the escape of his creation.” Her eyes fluttered shut, an almost pained expression crossing her face. “JNS-4308-17 has been dubbed a hazard to orderly existence, and must be located as soon as possible, and brought to Dr. Janssen for manual deactivation.” Her shoulders started trembling. “Citadel affiliates are encouraged to use any means necessary to achieve this goal. Glory to the New World Order.”

Suddenly, she jolted, and yanked her hand free of Needles’ grip. She reached up to her forehead and yanked the tiny chip out, shuddering as she did so. As she moved to curl her hand into a fist, crushing the chip, Gray Hawk yelped, “Don’t!”

Glory hesitated, fingers curled around the chip as she stared at him. The port in her forehead had closed up, and her skin was in the unsettling process of stitching itself back over, but she still looked incredibly off-putting, especially still covered in goopy silver coolant. “Why?” she demanded, voice broken and staticky.

“It could prove useful,” Gray Hawk insisted. “Better to have it and not need it, and all that.”

Glory’s face remained carefully blank, but her shoulders slowly stopped trembling. Wordlessly, she tipped sideways, into Needles’ chest, who easily wrapped his arms around her, shushing her softly.

Needles rubbed up and down her back for a few seconds, before reaching into one of his pockets and pulling out a tiny bottle, about to size of his little finger. He twisted the lid off, and held it up for Glory to drop the microchip into.

It fell into the bottle with a barely-audible clink, and Needles twisted the lid back on and pocketed it again. Glory’s trembles slowly evened out into a more generalized, anxious stiffness, and she stared off into space until Dixon reached out and waved a hand in front of her gaze.

“Kid. Hey, kid.” He snapped his fingers, and she finally looked over at him. That horrible, unnatural blankness on her face started to fade away. She was never the most expressive person ever, but that absolute expressionless gaze was just… wrong. But she at least seemed to be coming out of whatever dark place she’d fallen into. “Glory,” Dixon repeated, softer this time. “Whatever you’re thinking, it’s all right.”

“He told me he’d never go back,” she whispered, voice cracking and popping with static.

Needles paused where he’d been lightly rocking her from side to side. “Who? Your father?”

She nodded jerkily. “He said he’d rather die than go back. And what did he do? He went to them for help.” A moment passed, then she sat up, shuddering again. “I have to leave. Not even the cities will be safe for me. I need to—”

“Woah, woah, woah, wait!” Dixon yelped. “Just.. Just wait a sec, kid. You don’t have to leave.”

Her brows furrowed. “If I stay here, you’ll all be in danger.”

Dixon scoffed. “So, what? We’re always in danger.”

“From wastelanders and mutants and—and animals! Not the Benefactors themselves!” she barked. She looked to the rest—Gray Hawk and Centauri and Wilkes, who’d heard the commotion and come to investigate. And, of course, Needles, who Dixon didn’t doubt would follow her wherever she chose to go.

But, damn it, Dixon was so tired of her running away.

“Kid… Glory… listen to me.” Dixon took her shoulders, holding her firmly but gently as he gazed into her eyes. “If you really want to go, then go. We won’t stop you. But don’t leave just because you think it’s for our own good. Give us the right to at least make our own decisions.”

Glory hesitated, looking to the others. Dixon didn’t know exactly what she saw on their faces, but she at least didn’t look ready to bolt anymore. “If—If I stay, we need a plan.”

“And we’ll make one,” Gray Hawk agreed. “But together. Safety in numbers, and all that.”

“You really don’t mind the idea of being hunted by the Benefactors and their associates?” Glory asked. “After they find out you’re helping me—”

“Glory,” Centauri interrupted, “no offense, but shut up.”

Dixon had to suppress a snort at the annoyed look on her face, but she at least got the idea.

They weren’t going anywhere.