The morning had come and the ranger had left the outpost headed south west. He didn't know the perils he'd face, or maybe he didn't care. The ranger walked a road best not followed.

The Nevada heat beat down on the ranger, but he was used to it. He had spent most of his life under the Nevada sun, as a Nevada highway ranger. It was chapter of his life that was coming to an end despite his best efforts.

The mountains stood before the ranger. He looked back at outpost Mojave , and then he began walking. Walking towards a new chapter of his life.

The ranger walked the I-15 decimating the occasional raider party that crossed his path. He didn't know his destination. Only that it lay at the end of the road.

The ranger passed through the odd pioneer town, he had spent many a night camped beside the long dead vanes that crisscrossed the old world. The ranger only ventured off the highway once, to visit Nevada nuclear test facility 3-EP. He gathered maps and other various documents then pressed on, along the highway. The test site reminded him of home. The place he grew up in knew many names: Shadow Valley, the Haze, Blackcloud. He remembered the burned copper taste of the black mist that engulfed the town, the crumbling buildings and the corroded statues. No raiders ever entered the black mist, nobody ever came to the town raider or not, that's why they stayed, living in the toxic cloud. Well except for one. A Nevada ranger by the name Duncan Cassidy, a legend in his own right. That's why the ranger joined the Nevada highway patrol, and now he was the last of them.

The ranger stopped to set up camp for the night. Deciding to read through the paperwork before he used it for fuel for the campfire. As he went through the paperwork he discovered something he recognised, a symbol. That symbol. The symbol that represented all that was wrong in the haze. Next to the symbol it read 'Big MT research project: Sierra Madre'. The ranger pondered this for a second, he knew the legend. The city in the blood red cloud, guarded by ghosts. The opportunity to begin again.

Maybe this is what as at the end of the highway, my highway?

The next few days past with relative ease. The ranger disregarded the thoughts of the Sierra Madre and the Big MT. But the thoughts niggled at the back of his mind. Resurfacing when he reached the peek of the final hill. Their it lay, the city of the dead, blanketed in red. The air of the city reminded the ranger of home ,the taste of copper and old world gold in the air. The ranger pressed on. He new his destination was at the end of the road.

The stranger creatures with green eyes didn't bother the ranger. Maybe they knew the same purposelessness the ranger new and respected him, maybe they recognised him as one of them, one who was cursed to walk the cloud. He new the torment of one city blanketed in black and now he would find one blanketed in red.

He noticed the holograms that also inhabited the city. Another remnant he thought. He passed through the executive apartments. He new something was watching him. Not a hologram, not a ghost, but a person. Watching him.

It took a while before Christine noticed the stranger wandering through Sierra Madre. He blended in, walking casually through the cloud. He had travelled through some of the worst parts of the cloud without noticing.

Who is this guy? He just walked though miles of thick toxic cloud and he isn't fazed.

Slowly Christine moved through the apartments, making sure not to raise the strangers attention until the time was right. Then she targeted the strange man with her holo-rifle and called out.

"Hello?"

The ranger turned and looked up, he saw the girl, Christine almost immediately. He noticed her weapon, clearly an energy weapon. He called back greeting her and waving. Confused at the situation, Christine slowly made her way down the stairs to meet the stranger. She looked him over, noticing the T-45b pauldron. She spoke softly with the voice she knew wasn't her own.

"Who are you?"

The ranger replied with the deep gravely voice you'd expect from a ranger.

"I am... Was a Nevada highway ranger and my name's Shane Mayland."