Normally, Daniel would curse his bad luck, but if he stopped now he would most certainly die. And dying did not seem fun at all. The group of five raiders behind him would love it, though. Mainly because they would get to take his duffle bag. And for the past three months, that duffle bag had been his survival.

Daniel couldn't remember the last time he had feared for his life. But that didn't matter, because he was fearing now. The raiders had ambushed him as he neared the opening of a small canyon heading southeast along Interstate 15. Burnt-out skeletons of cars had littered the highway, and the raiders had planted frag mines under some. In fact, Daniel knew the mine would have gotten him if he had not heard the beeping noise. He barely had enough time to throw himself to the ground when it exploded. A few pieces of shrapnel had embedded themselves in his right leg, which made running a pain. But Daniel didn't mind.

He thought they had just passed into the Mojave Desert valley, but he couldn't be certain because it was around two in the morning. Up ahead, a neon aura of light shone into the night sky. Those lights were the only reason Daniel was here, and not back in Caliente as the town sheriff; Vegas.

Caliente had served Daniel well in his four years there. Originally from Arroyo, in Oregon, Daniel had moved to Caliente with his late wife. When the sheriff was murdered by a bandit gang, Daniel had volunteered to go after them. Along with the deputy, the two had ventured to the gang's hideout, and brought them all in. The deupty, not wanting the responsibility, had asked Daniel to take over as sheriff. And he had held that position until two months ago, when the tales of Vegas had persuaded him to hang up his hat and badge and pursue riches in Sin City. His wife had caught a disease nearly a year ago, and it took nearly all the stimpaks the local clinic had to keep her alive for a month. She loved Caliente, but she loved Daniel more, and would have wanted him to be happy.

So, Daniel had packed his duffle bag and headed southeast. His blasted .308 rifle and duffle bag weighed him down, and it didn't help that he had shrapnel in his leg. Only two of the raiders carried guns, he could tell by the rate of fire coming at him. Bullets sliced past him at an alarming rate, and Daniel guessed these raiders were past the point of negotiation.

If he turned quick enough, he figured he could pull his Sig Sauer, 12.7 millimeter pistol from his hip holster, and maybe get a few shots off. But the sudden change in movement would throw him off, and he would be dead faster than they would. He was a crack shot with both his .308 and Sig, but he couldn't draw worth his injured leg.

Daniel almost laughed, but he was too out of breath. It was ironic, really. Travelers through Caliente had told tales of the city of lights, gambling, and drinks. A paradise in the wastes. But, in his short five minutes in the Mojave, people were already trying to kill him. Daniel wondered how the raiders had gotten the jump on him; normally he would have scoped out ambushes. Maybe, since he'd been out a sheriff job for two months, his combat senses had dulled. Or, maybe he was just lazy. Daniel figured it was the latter.

The bullets slowed their relentless pace, and then they stopped. Daniel didn't dare turn. He still heard the footsteps of the five raiders, and now their voice echoed greater.

"He's fast!"

"Not fast enough, here, take some of this!"

"Give me that!"

"You got a light for this stuff?"

"Yeah, pass it around!"

Again, Daniel almost laughed. He thought it was hilarious that they were smoking mid-chase. But, he realized with a sickening horror that the raiders needed a light for something much more dangerous than smokes. Dynamite.

The sizzle of fuses filled the air, and Daniel ran faster. He pumped both legs and tried his best to forget about the throb in his right. Things started hitting the ground near him, and soon explosions tore through the canyon. One lifted Daniel from his feet, depositing him five yards ahead of his current position. He landed, hard, on his right ankle, and he knew instantly that he sprained it. But he didn't have time to worry about that.

Rolling, he shrugged his duffle bag off. It rolled a few yards away. Daniel reached down his right side and pulled his pistol from its holster. He spun backwards and raised it. The raiders were upon him, and Daniel fired twice before a raider hit his gun out of his hand with a tire iron. Who fights with a tire iron? Daniel thought, smiling wickedly to himself. Both of his shots hit one of the raiders in the chest. He convulsed on the ground, bleeding out onto the hard concrete. Daniel hadn't noticed, but it had become very cold in the past few minutes. What month was it? November? That sounded about right.

"You're very hard to kill, you know that?" one of the raiders, a pale-faced, thin man with a green mohawk said. His cheeks sagged, and Daniel could smell the alcohol on him.

"It's a gift," Daniel shrugged, and smiled weakly. The raider, however, didn't think Daniel was funny, and gave him a swift kick in the ribs. Daniel lay back on the concrete, and resigned, ready to die.

Suddenly, five loud gunshots first caught Mohawk-Man in the leg, sending him falling to the ground. The raiders barely had time to react, because the next three hit them with deadly accuracy - in either the head or chest. Each died instantly. Mohawk-Man lay clutching his leg. Daniel looked around for the source.

Behind him, silhouetted against the neon lights of Vegas, stood a man in a tan trench coat. A dark brown fedora sat atop his head. The stranger did not seem to be a very remarkable man. Daniel placed him at six feet. His air of mysteriousness was the remarkable thing; that, and the smoldering .44 magnum revolver he carried.

Slowly, the man walked forward. He passed by Daniel with barely a glance, instead standing above the writhing raider. Seeing him, the raider stopped his convulsions and held up his hands. When the strange man spoke, his voice was soft, but assertive.

"I fired five shots, punk, no question about it. Looks like your luck just ran out," the man told the raider quietly, and Daniel would've sworn he heard the raider whimper. The stranger's voice had a quiet edge to it which added to the man's menace. Slowly, the man raised the .44, and fired his last shot. It struck the raider between the eyes with a sickening squelch, causing his head to slam into the pavement. The stranger cooly popped the cylinder out, and reloaded each chamber by hand. He spun it once, and popped it back in.

"Uh, thanks," Daniel told him. He tried to stand. Instead, he fell back down. The stranger walked over to him.

"Don't stand. You're ankle is either strained or broken, and you've got some major shrapnel wounds. First thing's first, I'm going to give you some pain-reliever," he handed Daniel a syringe of Med-X. Without question, Daniel injected his leg, and almost instantly the pain subsided. "Good. Now, I need to take you somewhere safe. The middle of the highway is no place to give medical attention. Can you walk?"

"I believe that I am over-encumbered and cannot run," observed Daniel. Grimly, the mysterious stranger nodded. And with a swift arm movement, punched Daniel in the face. Daniel hit the concrete, knocked out stone cold.

Quickly, the man slipped into Daniel's duffle bag, grabbed Daniel, and hefted him over his shoulder. He started off down the highway, towards Vegas.

When Daniel awoke a few hours later, he first realized that his face hurt pretty bad. Then he found himself in a bed, and not on the ground or dumped in a ditch. A thin sheet covered his sore body. Light filtered through a boarded-up window. Silence filled the room.

"Oh," a voice to his side said. "You're awake. Good, for a second I thought I hit you too hard."

Daniel turned his head, and stared at the strange man in the trench coat. "Where am I?" he asked.

The stranger stood from his chair and walked into over to a large wardrobe. "In a small house, about a mile north of Freeside. Don't worry about the owners; no one has lived here in probably two hundred years."

"I wasn't really concerned. In fact, I make it my job not to be concerned," the man looked at him strangely, from around the door of the wardrobe. "Don't worry about it. What I want to know is why people are trying to kill me."

Closing the door, the stranger produced a pair of thick pants and a long brown duster. He handed them to Daniel and sat back down. "A lot of people are killing others. Raiders especially."

Daniel sat up on the bed. "Well, yeah, but this is Vegas. Isn't everybody supposed to be friendly in Vegas?"

The man looked at Daniel blankly. "No. Quite the opposite, really. Look, just put this stuff on. It'll do more than the whole 'roving trader' look you got going."

Looking at the duster and the pants, Daniel scoffed. "You think I'm some sort of cowboy, bud?"

The man tipped his hat and stood. "Just do it. Don't bother following me, because I'll be long gone in about five minutes." Daniel stood, grimacing as his leg throbbed viciously. He shrugged into the duster, and replaced his pants with the thick ones.

"Where will you go? Who are you?" Daniel asked when the stranger reached the door.

Turning, the stranger was once more a silhouette in the light. "I don't really have a name. And as to where I go? I mainly just wander...kind of like you. I try to roam; helping those who need it. Kind of like you," once more he tipped his fedora, and walked out with the door closing behind him.

Daniel fought the urge to run out and follow him. He didn't because he was tired, and his leg hurt. In fact, he fought the greater urge to lay back down and go to sleep. Instead, he found his weapons against the wall. As he slipped his pistol into its holster and his rifle onto his back, he walked out of the small house.

Nothing. The man in the trench coat was nowhere to be seen. Daniel walked a few yards forward, toward Vegas, and turned a full circle. The man wasn't even a shape on the horizon. He was gone. And Daniel didn't mind; the fellow had been a mysterious stranger.

Freeside was a dump. Daniel knew that the instant he entered from the north gate. Trash littered the street. Thugs lined the buildings and offered the latest product to weary travelers. A man with dirt caked skin had set up a booth on one side of the road, selling various types of meat on a stick. Daniel didn't dare ask what the meat was. He preferred squirrel stew anyway. The lights of Vegas cut through the late night sky.

Across from the strange meat vendor stood a line of men. Two of them wore leather jackets, and Daniel could smell the hair product they wore. He could see it too; their slicked back hair glistened in the sunlight. The hair stuff smelled like alcohol, strawberries, and silver polish. Daniel walked straight up to one of the fools and sniffed his hair.

No; that definitely was silver polish.

Ignoring the confused looks from the passersby, Daniel stepped back and looked at both men in the leather jackets. The words "The Kings" in big white type played across the backs.

"Did you know that you're wearing silver polish in your hair?" he asked.

The Kings member looked at him like he was crazy; which in all probability, Daniel could be. "Boy, you cruisin' for a bruisin'?"

Daniel splayed his hands out to his sides. "No, I swear, there's silver polish in your hair."

His friend sniffed him. "Pace, he ain't kiddin'. I think you got some silver polish in your hair," and Daniel left the two there, arguing about the silver polish in their hair. He kept walking south, towards the skyline of Vegas. On his left, a huge monstrosity of a building sat right in the middle of Freeside. A sign outside read "Old Mormon Fort."

An old bus led into the business section of Freeside. The "fun" part of town, one casino, was on his right, under different colored lights that read "Freeside." The only casino left in Freeside was the Atomic Wrangler; basically a hole in the wall.

The Kings' safehouse, the "Kings School of Impersonation" sat on the corner a few blocks down from the Strip. Pictures of a man holding a guitar lined the outer walls. He too had silver polish in his hair, and sang into a can.

Daniel didn't care, he kept walking towards a gate at the southern end of Freeside. The gate read "New Vegas Strip," and was guarded by four securitron-class police robots. These metal refrigerators rolled on a single wheel, and a giant screen projected the face of a policeman. One rolled over to Daniel as he approached the gate.

"Submit to a credit check or present a passport to gain entrance to the Strip," demanded the robot in a stern, military voice.

"Credit check?" asked Daniel. "How much?"

"Two thousand caps!" it asserted.

"What if I don't have them?"

"Well, uh..." the robot, caught off guard, forgot what it was programmed to say. "I guess you can't get in."

"I travel for two months, and I can't get in?" Daniel had no words.

"Yeah. If you want, the Atomic Wrangler is basically everything you won't find in Vegas, just not there. Or the NCR has a soup kitchen around the corner."

Daniel decided to go to the soup kitchen. Why pay for dinner when you could have it given to you? He walked down Las Vegas Boulevard and turned right on Fremont Street, past the Atomic Wrangler. Walking through a dilapidated house, he turned left and found himself across from the railroad depot. Two guards stood on either side of a small shop.

"What's the password?" one of the guards at the door asked. Daniel sighed.

"Look guys," he started, "I don't want any trouble. I just rolled in, I barely have enough for a room tonight. And I really don't feel like sending you back to California in a coffin. Could you cut me some slack?" pleaded Daniel. He was hungry; he just wanted some squirrel stew.

"Are you an NCR citizen?" asked the guard on the right, a tall black man wearing a leather vest.

"Yes, born and raised in Arroyo."

"Then you could pass a citizenship test?"

"You kidding? No, fine, I'll take your stupid test."

"It's just three questions. Who was the most popular president, what is the capital, and what is the animal on the flag?"

Daniel scoffed. This was a citizenship test? Anyone with sub-standard intelligence could answer these.

"The most popular president was definitely Tandi. The capital is Shady Sands, and the animal on the flag is a two-headed bear. Let me in, fools," Daniel shoved his way past the two and into the small corner store.

Inside, people of an assortment of ages, genders, and all shapes and sizes filled the open room. They formed a single line that wove from the door, along a counter, and back out again. NCR mercenaries worked the counter. A woman, their leader presumably, did most of the talking.

"How are you?" she asked Daniel when he sauntered up to the counter.

"Hungry," confessed Daniel.

"Well take what you want, and spread the word: the NCR wants to help the people of Freeside," she told him.

Daniel raised an eyebrow. "Lose the guards then, lady. And offer this to all of their citizens, not just the ones from the NCR. Filthy hypocrites. You're no better than the gangsters with silver polish in their hair," the mercenary looked offended as Daniel took a bowl of steaming squirrel stew and a bottle of clean water and walked out.

"See ya fellas," he told the guards outside. "Have fun terrorizing the kiddies," both guards waved.

He walked back the way he came, through the house and past the Atomic Wrangler. When he turned back on Las Vegas Boulevard, he sat down in front of an old steakhouse, and began to eat his squirrel stew with a plastic spoon. He didn't notice the two Kings walk up until they stood over him. He took a bite of stew and looked up at them.

"Need something?" he asked.

The King on the right responded by kicking his squirrel stew. It toppled over, and the hot stew splashed Daniel in his face, neck, and chest. In a split second, the two fell on him. Both repeatedly kicked and punched him in the face and sides. Daniel could only hold his hands up in vain defense as the two landed their blows.

As quick as they started, the two ceased their assault. Daniel lay on the ground, his whole body aching from their beating. The Kings stood over his limp body, bathed by the Vegas lights. One bent and picked his water bottle up. He unscrewed the cap and poured it on Daniel, being sure to soak his entire body. Too lazy to fight back, Daniel lay there motionless.

"The King doesn't like your kind around here, soldier boy," one King said with his drawl. "You NCR folk are ruinin' this town. Get lost, or we'll pay you another visit."

The two walked off as fast as they had come, leaving Daniel to wonder where the fun part about Vegas was. Everyone had been rude to him except the mysterious stranger, and he was gone. Daniel would probably never see him again. And now, the Kings thought he was a squatter from the NCR. But he didn't mind, because he was good at squatting.

And that is how Daniel spent his first night in Vegas: laying on the ground beaten; the only thing he could smell being squirrel stew and silver polish.