My new tent was near the front, and I had to face a rather awkward march in front of all the crucifixion crosses lined up in a row before we reached it. It was probably intended; one of those "make sure you don't screw with us" things.

There were lots of people on the crosses—more than I expected. Some had clothes, some were stripped nearly bare. Most of them looked exhausted; some of them looked dead. One of them was murmuring to himself, looking up at the skies through thick sunglasses that I'm sure the other Legion-dubbed 'degenerates' envied him for.

"Carla, please forgive me for what I've done. Besides, you would hate it here anyways."

"Hey, baldie," interrupted the man on the cross next to him. He was fully clothed in a stylish checkered suit, and his hair looked like it had once been well fashioned with gel, but was now falling around his face in exhausted strands. "Can it, you dig? You've been talkin' 'bout your hot broad ever since you ring-a-ding-dang up on this party. Honestly, baby, it's getting old."

"It's my death, Chairman." The man in the sunglasses was blunt, his voice coarse. Judging by his beret, he used to be an NCR sniper. "I spend it the way I want."

"Hey, don't let me crowd your style, baby," nonchalantly retorted the man in the suit. "But I'd like to spend my last dying breaths in silence, which your cutesy little mantra isn't exactly helping, you dig?"

"Yeah. I dig." He dropped his voice down to the same whisper as before and continued anyway. "Besides, Carla, you'd hate it here anyways. Our child would have grown up in a hell hole."

Vulpes was far in front of me, as I had gotten caught up in the conversations of the people nailed to the makeshift crosses. I trotted a little faster to make it back to his side, pretending that I had been there the whole time.

"Don't worry," he said, and I was surprised by the smooth, angelic echoes of his voice. His dull hairstyle really threw me off, and I had expected more of a deep, brute-like voice. His face kept looking forward with a calm air, making him seem more leader-like and intimidating. "You won't be lashed to a cross like the rest of these degenerates. As long as Caesar has good use for you, you will remain alive and well protected. And Caesar will have good use for you for a very, very long time."

Something about the reassurance made me gulp in fear. "Do I get to keep the steaks that I stole, then?" I asked.

"Do what you wish with them. You did work for them, even though your 'work' was an infiltrating theft. It was still more effort than any other soldier has exerted for them."

I'll give some to Arcade, then, I thought, figuring he wouldn't get to eat very much. Then, maybe some of the girl slaves running about. They probably deserve some too.

Vulpes gestured to the tent that I was to call home, and I ducked my head to step inside. It had no door flaps of any sort, and the thought of a slave having better living quarters gave me slight envy.

"Keep whatever is in the chest," Vulpes added mildly. "It will be of little use to the soldier now."

Giving Vulpes a dismissing nod, I wondered if that meant the soldier was dead, or about to be dead. It was kind of a morbid inheritance if it were so.

Once Vulpes left me to my own devices, I ventured right out of the little camp and headed back to the people on the crosses. I wasn't sure exactly what else I was supposed to do, besides root through the chest the previous resident had left me, and I figured that I could do that later.

The man in the sunglasses was still chanting his mantra of sorrow to Carla, and the man in the suit beside him looked as if he had given up trying to convince him to stop.

"Either I'm seeing doubles, or old Baldie is hiring a few hot Vexillarius broads," the suited one mused.

"I'm the same from earlier," I said simply. "Lydia is the name."

"And rootin' is the game, I take it? How heavy is that flag on your back? Obviously not enough to drag you to the ground, or some soldiers would be plowing fields all over you." I couldn't understand what he was trying to say at all. I didn't speak Chairman. "Old Baldie isn't exactly the type to go around hiring the opposite sex, you dig? Chances are, you're here for something a little bigger—like those rocks the girls with the nice charlies are carryin' around, if you catch my drift."

I ignored him. "Do you guys want steak?"

"Yeah, I'd like steak," the Chairman answered quickly. "I'd like to sit down at a nice table with a few hot broads to eat it with, too. Though, chances are that you wouldn't be able to ring me up with a deal like that, would ya, doll?"

"Yeah, I don't know how to hook you up with a table, or hot broads," I answered awkwardly. "I do have steak, though. Six of them. Want one?"

The NCR sniper looked gruffly down at me, and said bluntly, "No."

"What he means to say, pussycat, is that it's a little pointless to keep eating when you're humiliated on a cross day by day. Why keep living in this cruel world, anyway, hm?"

"I have someone waiting for me too," the soldier said.

"Oh, for Pete's sake, Boone, eat the steak," called a familiar voice behind me. There was Arcade, trudging towards me, unguarded for once. His hair was in disarray and his lip displayed a new bruise. I wondered what Caesar—or his men, I suppose—had done to him.

"Why?" the soldier—Boone, I take it—asked bluntly.

"Just trust me, and take what is being offered to you. At the very least, take some healing powder," Arcade snapped back. "It'll give you more strength to support your own weight on the cross, so I don't have to watch you slouched over like that."

"So this is for your entertainment, then? Don't want me to give out before my crucifixion satisfies you?"

"Oh, fortu-," Arcade sighed angrily. "You know perfectly well that I didn't choose to be a slave. I just don't want to see a full man cry, either literally or figuratively—with his posture."

"Ironic," I piped in, "coming from a man with slouchy shoulders."

"Ironic," he repeated, "coming from a woman with a slouchy back."

I knew perfectly well that my posture wasn't very good, so I kept quiet from then on.

"I will accept the powder," Boone said stiffly. "But I will not eat."

"That's good enough for now, I suppose," Arcade sighed, suddenly holding his hand out to me. Realizing that he wanted me to give him some of the bags of powder, I ruffled in my bag, pulled out a sizable one, and put it in his palm.

"On the other hand," the Chairman piped in, "I'll take the steak. It gets lonely without a fresh lump of meat to fill the Ben-man, but I suppose food is good too every once and a while."