He wasn't supposed to kill the slavers. He was supposed to work with them.

It didn't matter how many times Charon reminded himself of that fact. At this point, nothing could loosen the vice grip of his finger on his shotgun's trigger.

He'd done so many jobs like this one, but the problem was, he'd always done them alone. There were two smoothskin mercs with him this time - a pair of slavers from the Lincoln Memorial. Perched on a lookout above Dupont Circle, they watched the last of the daylight fade. They'd been waiting for hours, and it was almost dark enough to move.

As a rule, Charon didn't mind stakeouts. Sitting still and keeping his mouth shut were both artforms, ones he'd gladly taken up under Ahzrukhal's employ. Still, he couldn't shake it - something odd had come over him, and all he could do to keep from fidgeting was grip his shotgun like he was trying to break it in half. He tried to remind himself - he was here to kill raiders, lots of them. Too many to take on his own. He needed the slavers, and he needed them alive, especially because they worked on Ahzrukhal's dime. That was just common sense, but all things considered, he was all too ready to pepper them with buckshot until there wasn't anything recognizable left behind.

The slavers were too close for comfort, close enough to smell the stink of chems and booze that wafted from them. Unfortunately, personal space was in short supply where they'd chosen to hunker down. They squatted between heaps of bricks in what remained of an office building, flanked by a gauntlet of gutted terminals. The slavers leaned out just enough to take stock of the raider camp in the roundabout below. Charon crouched behind them, certain he'd gone crazy. This feeling couldn't be personal. He'd never met these smoothskins before, and that was where it didn't add up. What came over him now was nothing short of a vendetta.

The resentment, in a fashion, was mutual. Charon guessed the slavers were hurting for caps, or they wouldn't have taken a job from a ghoul. The sidelong glances they gave him now were no less venomous than the ones they'd been giving him all day. Forced to sit and endure it, Charon began to seethe, despite his best efforts to the contrary. Dirty looks weren't worth getting angry over, and any ghoul with an ounce of sense knew that. He wasn't that petty, but given the situation, he'd begun to doubt himself.

Even the most trivial things about them chafed. There was the smell, naturally, but their names trumped everything. Most wastelanders went by something vaguely threatening, but these slavers hadn't bothered. One of them, a woman, called herself Knicknack. It was hardly menacing, but at least it made sense - her pack sported a festoon of rusted handcuffs, and at her belt, a collection of electronic slave collars. Her bomber jacket was encrusted with wasteland trash. Charon pegged her for a pack rat. The other slaver, Bug, was it? He was stick skinny and sunburned, hair dreaded from neglect. Bug was a shitty name. Charon had stopped trying to sort that one out.

Stupid nicknnames were only the half of it. They were both amateurs, beyond a doubt. Bug fumbled with an expensive-looking sniper rifle, straining to get the best view of the Circle. Knicknack bounced her knee a mile a minute, tweaked out on chems. Against his better judgment, Charon scoffed to himself. Knicknack twitched and glanced over her shoulder, returning Charon's stare with narrowed eyes.

"Hey," she barked. "Zombie. Do I have something in my teeth?"

"No," he replied, as flatly as he could manage. "You do not."

He bit his tongue as soon as the words came out. The prospect of speaking to either of them was nearly too much to handle. The slaver rolled her bloodshot eyes, and it was all Charon could muster to keep the shotgun flat on his lap.

"Fuck's sake," she said. "Do you take everything literally? I meant I don't like being stared at, asshole."

"Nick. Stop." Bug sighed, hoisted his sniper rifle over the ledge, and jerked it on it's tripod. "You know he's not... all there. That's what the other shuffler said, right? He's not a talker. Screwed up in the head or something. Just drop it. C'mere and help me."

Knicknack ignored her partner. She looked at Charon and crinkled her nose, undeterred.

"I don't give a shit what that corpse in a suit said," she growled. "If you got something to say, ghoul, then say it. Otherwise, piss off. We got raiders to take care of."

Charon kept his mouth shut.

"Smart zombie," she said.

She stared him down, daring him to talk back. Despite the hostility, settling into their hideout seemed to have loosened her up a bit, considering how she'd splayed out next to Bug. Charon grimaced and looked away. This was the most she'd spoken to him since they met. He guessed the sack of jet she'd procured from Ahzrukhal was the main culprit. She was elbow deep in it, pulling out canisters as quickly as she could suck them dry. Bug shot her an impatient glare and cleared his throat, sighing as she took the hint and kicked the bag aside. To Charon's relief, she turned away, settled into a squat, and leaned over the ledge beside her partner.

"Finally," Bug sighed. "C'mon, Knicknack. Spot. Do something. What are we looking at down there?"

"There's a group of raiders at Dupont and 19th." Knicknack paused to take a drag of jet, then set to tapping her fingers on the stock of the rifle. "Third floor, overlooking the roundabout. Sharpshooters. Maybe three? Can't get a good count yet... Shit, and maybe two more off Massachusetts. They've got eyes on the whole damn Circle. And then there's the whole... mess of them at the fountain..."

Charon grimaced. He didn't need a reminder, especially not one driven home by the sound of her nervous fidgeting. He knew the situation below wasn't pretty, but he began to think that maybe, just maybe, asking for backup was a mistake. He'd seen the raider camp for the first time barely twelve hours prior. One look was enough to send him back to Underworld, at a loss. It was a first, for him, asking his employer for help. It was also a first for Ahzrukhal to willingly offer it, and Charon couldn't shake the feeling that the end result was charity disguised as punishment. Maybe Ahzrukhal knew something he didn't. Something that would explain this urge to kill, which had moved from a vague feeling to a clear suggestion in his brain.

Shoot them. That thought repeated, over and over, like a broken record. It didn't make sense - only his orders were supposed to do that, and it wasn't in his orders to kill them. The commands he'd been given were simple enough. Go to Dupont Circle, Ahzrukhal had said. Kill the raiders camped there. Let the slavers take care of the rest. As always, his employer's voice stuck in his head, louder than any of his own thoughts. Louder than his compulsion, too, for now. Charon tried to push the thought down, but it kept surfacing, over and over - he couldn't remember the last time he actually wanted something. Worst of all, Ahzrukhal didn't say not to kill them. He had a terrifying amount of wiggle room.

"Shit, are those landmines?" Knicknack pulled back from the scope, and then jammed her eye against it again. She counted on her breath for a few seconds, then trailed off, defeated. "Just... Look at this fortress they scraped together. Sandbags and all. We're not being paid enough. Christ. They're getting rowdy, now. Just lookit this shit. "

With a backwards glance at Charon, she threw up a hand towards the ledge.

"I meant you, dickhead," she barked. "Go check it out. Party's starting."

Charon slid over grudgingly and ducked next to the windowsill. Down below, a wall of sandbags, barbed wire and aluminum siding circled the roundabout, where the glow of the raiders' camp cut through the dark. Generators ran on all sides, powering a rats' nest of christmas lights. Slipshod tents circled a marble fountain at the roundabout's center, where a handful of raiders ganged up on one of their companions. Typical. It started as a minor scuffle, ramping up as raiders closed in on all sides. Some threw bottles at the unlucky casualty while another closed in, eviscerating him with a trench knife. As if his shrieking wasn't loud enough, someone sprayed their assault rifle in the air. Knicknack laughed.

"I don't blame you for turning tail," she snickered. "Not a pretty sight, is it? I guess even a stupid lug like you gets spooked sometimes."

Charon ignored her and looked past the raiders. They were only half the reason he'd stopped looking over the ledge. There were worse things down there. Not far from the fountain was a cage made of pieced-together chain link fence, and it held two wastelanders, huddled together in the corner furthest from the entry. He imagined they still held out hope of a rescue, and in that, they were sorely mistaken. Charon pitied them. It was the definition of shit luck, being rescued by two slavers and a ghoul. But shit luck was what came of doing business with Ahzrukhal, especially when deals went south. By the time this was all over, they'd either be headed to Paradise Falls or dead, and it was Charon's job to make sure there wasn't a third option.

He was no stranger to work like this, but straightening out Ahzrukhal's debts generally took on a more palatable form. One look at him, and most people with sense coughed up caps right away. It didn't involve a bounty, and it certainly didn't involve slavers. Often enough it didn't even involve violence, if Charon managed to do it right. This time wasn't supposed to be any different, but Ahzrukhal's debts didn't typically stumble into raider camps, and Charon's appeal for backup put ideas in his employer's head. Ahzrukhal was all too happy to rise to the challenge.

All things considered, the situation was fishy. Charon didn't have the best memory. It tended to fade in and out, and thinking back more than a few months didn't yield much more than vague feelings. He knew for a fact that Ahzrukhal took full advantage of that. This situation - the bounty, the slavers, the debt - smacked of another one of his sadistic games. The knot in Charon's stomach was proof enough. Not much could make it go away once it started, but killing his backup was a tempting remedy.

Charon's eyes wandered from the collars on Knicknack's backpack, to her pockmarked face, and back again. If only this was one of the odd occasions where his memory didn't fail him. He couldn't shake the feeling that he knew her, or something like her. His hands, still strangling his shotgun, had started to cramp. She stared right back at him, but thankfully, she kept her mouth shut. Charon scooted back from the ledge, putting as much distance between him and the slaver as possible. It didn't help, and worst of all, it made Knicknack grin.

"I don't bite," she said.

Charon bit back a curse. She thought he was cowering, and she was dead wrong.

"No, really," she cooed. "You're lucky we're here to help. Your boss is smart, giving you qualified backup. He could have just paid the raiders for his little bounty. They already did half the work, putting them in a cage. But he knows better than to make a deal with those tweaked-out fucks."

Charon scoffed. She was one to talk. Knicknack shot him a withering look.

"That's it. I'm done trying to be nice, zombie. I warned you once already."

"Don't get sour," Bug said. "Tall, dark and stupid over here's got a point." He kicked at the growing pile of jet canisters at Knicknack's feet. "Slow down, why don't you? You trying to finish it all in one go? God, I can't believe you screwed that shuffler out of that much inventory."

"Yeah, well. He didn't bat an eye about it, so I guess he's got plenty to spare," she said. To Charon's dismay, she turned to look at him again. "And that reminds me. What's your boss's deal, anyways? He really gets by selling chems to a bunch of walking corpses? Is that a solid business model? I guess if I had a face like yours and no expiration date, I'd be high all the time, too."

"You're already high all the time," Bug muttered.

"Not the point. And I'm talking to the zombie, not you." Knicknack rolled her shoulders and looked back at Charon. "Anyways. As I was saying. Your boss, he dope you up 24/7, is that it? Is that why you keep staring at me? You want a fix? If you're hoping I'll share, you can go fuck yourself."

"No." Charon said.

"No to what, dipshit?"

"Everything you have said."

Charon shifted against the ledge. His shotgun creaked in his hands. Any tighter, and he'd start to tear his own skin.

"You really aren't a talker," Knicknack said. "So what's your deal, anyways? That shuffler treats like you're some kind of dog. Is that what you are? A mute dog?"

Obvious bait, but Charon was long past the point of resisting it. He didn't have to take shit from a wasteland nobody. He looked Knicknack in the face and narrowed his eyes before he could stop himself.

"I am not a dog," he said. Only five words, but his tone was enough of a warning.

"Fuck, Knicknack," said Bug. "If you want him to stop glaring at you, maybe you should watch your mouth."

"Chill. He doesn't have anything going on upstairs, Buggie. I mean look at him."

Bug lingered on Charon for a moment, and wrinkled his nose.

"Yeah... maybe you're right. What's up with you, man? It's not chems, so what did it? Hit your head?"

Bug waved a hand in front of Charon's face. Charon grit his teeth. What was the point in fighting it? They were begging to get shot.

"Can't say more than two words at once," Bug mused. "Maybe all those rads did you in when you became became a shuffler. Yeah, you're halfway to feral, I bet..."

Knicknack jammed a playful elbow into Bug's side.

"See?" she laughed. "It's fun, right? Nothing. Na-da. Nobody home. Gives me the heebie-jeebies. Most guys would have punched me in the mouth by now."

With an exaggerated shudder, she giggled again.

"Really, why the fuck haven't you? It's downright creepy. And I don't mean just me. Why haven't you ripped that shuffler boss of yours a new one? You're huge, man, seriously. You're a goddamned giant. He treats you like a shit stain on his boot and you just take it. What's he got on you, huh?"

Charon wished she would stop looking at him. It only got worse, the longer she kept her eyes on him. She inspected him like he was a brahmin carcass, as if she were sizing up the best cuts and tallying how many caps she could sell them for.

"You follow orders, yeah?" she asked. "That's what he told me. You're a good listener. Do what you're told. Wouldn't shut up about it, actually. It was weird."

Charon tensed. She was going somewhere with this, and he didn't like it.

"I follow my employer's orders," he said. "Not yours."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what the hell is up with him, huh? Does he kick your ass when you don't do what he says? God, he could hardly put a dent in you. I'd like to see him try, though. You look like you could take a punch."

"Physical violence invalidates the contract," he said.

"The what?"

Charon bit his tongue. This happened too often. As much as he hated speaking, it was an automatic response, one he could rarely hold back. Spouting the terms of his contract was as reflexive as a flinch. It was also the quickest way to get a stranger asking too many questions about things that weren't their business.

"I have no obligation to speak to you," he said. It was a half truth, at best. Obligation and compulsion went hand in hand.

Knicknack narrowed her eyes. Charon growled in response. She'd picked up on his tone, but she didn't seem to care.

"Nick, we got work to do," Bug said. He slapped her in the arm. "Stop pissing him off."

"No, no, no," she snapped. "Shut up for a minute. What did you just say? What contract?"

Charon clenched his jaw. The compulsion didn't come, but all she had to do was pick the right words and it would be back in a heartbeat.

"You don't want to share all of a sudden? Fine, I can put two and two together. So he's not allowed to lay into you. Why would you even listen to him, then? He pay you a lot?"

"I do not require payment."

He swallowed, hard. That time, it felt uncannily like vomiting. Knicknack leaned back, lounging against the wall. She was having too much fun.

"So he doesn't beat your ass, and he doesn't pay you," she said. "So what? You like it, then? What the fuck makes you listen to him?"

"I am obligated to listen."

"And what does he do when you don't?"

"I am obligated to listen."

Bug turned his head and rolled his eyes.

"Uh-huh. Sure. Do we look a crate shy of a load?" He looked at his partner. "Knicknack. Please. You pissed him off, and now he's fucking with you. That's how gullible you are. You're getting strung along by a shuffler with shit for brains. Can we get back to work? Please?"

Knicknack leaned in. She licked her lips.

"No, no. Just wait," she said. "Pay attention, Bug. This is exactly what I was telling you about."

"He's not a robot, Nick," Bug said. "Don't be fucking stupid. Slaves like this don't exist."

"Bull shit, they don't. We got one right here."

Charon clenched his teeth as her face lit up. He'd seen that deranged look once already, on their way to the roundabout, when she'd picked a shiny tin can out of the dirt.

"Jesus," she breathed. "Always thought it was wishful thinking, you know, with all these runaways we got on our hands. Too good to be true. But here you are. You're a walking goddamn campfire story."

"You are not making sense," Charon growled. "Explain."

"Aw, don't worry," she teased. "It's not your fault you don't have any brain cells left."

She patted a weapon that sat between her and Bug, a clunky aluminum box with a shoulder stock. He'd never seen a mesmetron in person, at least, not that he could remember. But Ahzrukhal had warned him about it the day before. He told Charon to stay out of it's way.

"They scrambled your brains," Knicknack said. She rapped her knuckles on the mesmetron for emphasis. "Mezzed 'em to shit. Fried 'em through your skull. You're nothing more than a pair of boots that can shoot a gun and take orders."

"Come on, Knicknack," said Bug. "Not this shit again. You mezz a guy more than three or four times and you'll blow his head off. There's no way you can make that shit permanent. It's just not possible."

"Shut up, Bug. You got a better explanation?"

"Yeah, actually. You're a fucking dumbass."

She spat on Bug's boot, then leaned in, towards Charon. Her voice got quiet.

"Bug doesn't know shit. You're a braindead slave, that's what. Man, I'm no prude, but that kinda shit ain't right. Slave collar, detonator, and a few good threats will do the trick just fine. That's the catch. If slaves aren't good and afraid, they misbehave. But a headfucked zombie like you's no fun. They fried your noggin and you're too dumb to get scared. And, hey, what if Bug's right? What happens, when whatever they did to you wears off?"

Bug shook his head in disbelief, but kept quiet. Charon glared at her. She was full of shit, but a part of him wanted her to keep talking. His curiosity and his murderous itch were clashing, head on. For now, his grip on his shotgun relaxed only slightly. He wanted to know why everything she said made the feeling in his stomach worse. He wanted something, a memory, anything to come back to the surface and prove her wrong. But all he got was the same shitty feeling.

"How long you been like that?" Knicknack asked. "Corpsified, I mean. Did they do that to you, or did you just have a bad day?"

They. She kept saying they. Who the fuck were they? He shook his head. What the hell was wrong with him? Did he really believe the ravings of some strung-out slaver? She could barely string words together without twitching. She didn't know a damn thing.

"Well? Speak up. I'm sure there's a story there, zombie."

It hit him, then. He knew even less than she did. He couldn't answer her question, because he didn't have the slightest clue. He didn't want to admit it. Humoring her was a terrible idea, but he was stuck between wanting answers and wanting to get as far away from her as possible. It was all he could do to stop his hands from shaking. Knicknack watched him expectantly. She wasn't going to settle for silence, and he couldn't take her staring at him any longer.

"I do not remember," he said at last.

Her widening grin told him he should have kept quiet. Knicknack whistled through her teeth.

"Ho-lee shit," she laughed. "That settles it. Braindead, one-hundred percent..."

Charon shot her a murderous glare. Knicknack leaned closer, undeterred.

"I bet that shuffler shelled out every cap he could scrape together to get a merc like you," she said. "Bet you don't even think your own thoughts. Man, you're a boring sonuvabitch, but if I-"

"Knicknack, for god's sake," Bug moaned. "Your hard-on is showing. You don't really believe this shit, do you? The zombie's laying down the bait, and your dumb ass keeps taking it. So he doesn't get paid, and he doesn't get beat. He's a slave, obviously. An obedient one. So what? You're so easy to-"

"I am not a slave," Charon said. "Ahzrukhal is my employer."

Those words came out automatically, too. But they weren't Charon's. They were Ahzrukhal's, verbatim. He wasn't sure why he'd latched onto them, but despite everything, the statement rang true.

"Sure, man." Knicknack threw her hands up in the air. "Whatever you say. It's not like, my business or anything." She reached back and rattled her collection of slave collars. "'Cept that it is, literally, my business."

She giggled, prompting Bug to deliver a swift cuff upside her head. Knicknack turned and squinted through the scope again.

"Yeah, yeah, cool your jets," she muttered.

Charon scowled. He gripped his shotgun, his knuckles threatening to tear through the rotted skin on his hands.

"Aw, look at him," Bug said. "You're being fucked up. She didn't mean it. She's crazy, I promise."

"I meant it," Knicknack replied.

Charon's head hurt. It really hurt. That was new. For all the countless times Ahzrukhal put him in situations like this, the discomfort never got this far. It felt like someone had brained him with a baseball bat. He mashed his palm into his eye socket.

"Shut up, both of you," he said. "Please."

"Shit!" Knicknack laughed. "Finally something real out of you."

"Nickie, he's right. Just shut your damn mouth and spot."

"Alright, alright. Bite me."

Knicknack leaned back out the window. The pain in Charon's head was the last straw. There was no going back. Ahzrukhal's orders faded to no more than a faint suggestion, and staring at the back of Knicknack's head, Charon knew he had to kill her. Only his orders had ever felt so clear. His shotgun shook in his hands. He reached out, grabbed Knicknack by the collar of her jacket, and threw her backwards against the concrete.

"Hey, what the fuck-"

He shot her in the face. Point blank, and it was over. Knicknack's skull was not much more than a red smear. Satisfying, to be sure, but the urge to kill persisted. He looked at Bug. The slaver scrambled back, whipped a laser pistol from his thigh holster, and pointed it at Charon's head.

"Jesus," Bug stammered. The pistol rattled in his hand. "P-Put it down! Put the fucking gun down!"

Charon backed up and lowered his shotgun.

"What the hell are you thinking, you psychotic fuck?" Bug spat. "You just screwed us both over! Those raiders are gonna come crawling all over looking for us! You kill me, you're dead too, moron."

Charon drew in a breath. He couldn't stop now. He raised his shotgun again.

"W... Whoa, whoa, whoa," Bug said. "Look. I get it. Nick's an asshole. She had it coming. But I'm not stupid. Okay? I don't talk shit to people I work with."

"You are mistaken," Charon said plainly. "I do not care about that."

Charon pulled the trigger, and Bug ducked, rolling to the side just as a shell ripped into his leg.

"J-Jesus! Fucking... Holy fuck," Bug stared at his leg, mangled below the knee, and looked back up at Charon, eyes wide with pain. "Fuck, fuck... What the hell, man? What do you want, a fucking apology? What did I ever do to you, you thin-skinned twat?"

Charon hesitated. Bug didn't. His pistol flashed, and a red laser cut across Charon's arm. Charon staggered back, hissing, his skin bubbling instantly. Stupid mistake. The reason behind all of this didn't matter. There was something there, something he couldn't pin down, but that's how it always was. He could only trust his instincts, and his instincts told him the slavers had to die.

He took a step towards Bug. The slaver dropped his pistol and started to crawl, clawing at the concrete with shaking hands. Charon tracked him with the barrel of his shotgun. He had to finish it.

"I'm sorry, ok?" Bug pleaded without looking up, still crawling. "I'm fucking sorry, just... wait..."

The shotgun bucked in his hands. He plastered Bug's brains across the rubble, but it wasn't enough. He grit his teeth. He shot the merc once, twice, three times. Bug's torso turned to a pulp. Slowly, his bloodlust faded, replaced by a cold sweat. It didn't make sense. He didn't do anything wrong, he was sure of it. There was nothing in his orders that said he couldn't kill them. They deserved to die.

He glanced over the ledge, and a chill ran up his spine. The raiders scattered. He heard them down below, scrambling through the ruins and whooping like maniacs. Charon cursed under his breath and stared at Bug's corpse, rueful. The slaver was right. He'd lost the element of surprise. The twisting in his stomach worsened, and he knew it wasn't the sight of the raiders that brought it on. There were worse things than being maimed, and something told him failing Ahzrukhal a second time was one of them.

He didn't know from experience. He'd never fucked up a mission this badly, not once.

There was a first time time for everything.