He woke up with his face in sand.
Faintly, Hank remembered falling through the air and before that...a man brutally murdered; the arena and its drums. And his fall from the cliffs. Not a fall...his jump. Hank tried to sit up and groaned when his midsection throbbed. When he made his splash, the current had carried him downriver. Along the way, rapids and rocks slammed his body. And when he finally surfaced against the bank far downriver, he thanked whatever gjod existed, because for his life the only god he had known held the throne and the name of Caesar.
Sputtering,half in and half out of unconsciousness, he clawed himself up on the bank. For a few seconds, Hank lay immobile. If a wanderer had passed, he would have thought the man on the bank had died. While he lay on the ground, Hank started thinking.
The Legion Explorer side of him thought immediately of his next actions. The next hour of his life would be the most important. Walking in the right direction could mean his survival, or his death.
To the west lay the NCR, he knew. Still in his Legion attire, any trained NCR soldier would shoot first and never bother to ask questions. Unless he was an NCR politician, than he would definitely be asked a few questions after he was killed. And then he would have a pamphlet which read "Elect/Re-elect [Politician's Name]!"
In the east, in the direction from whence he had just fallen, Caesar ruled. From the Colorado to Flagstaff, and even into New Mexico Caesar dominated man and beast alike. And currently, Hank considered that the Legion probably considered him an enemy of the state. Caesar never treated enemies of the state nicely, especially when they used to hold the rank of Legion Explorer.
And the north and south was just water, Mojave, and either Utah or Baja. The NCR had Rangers in Baja, Hank knew; earlier this year he explored the land. In the summer it was a nice place. Zion and New Canaan sat in Utah, and Hank knew that was not a good place. Joshua Graham lead some of the tribes there. And Joshua Graham had killed some of his fellow scouts. Hank knew it was Graham because one of the scouts had told him. That same scout had come back with one arm and both legs below the knee missing. The man had been forced to drag himself from Utah back to the Fort.
If he walked east and then south, he could make it to Primm. A raiding party sacked Nipton, but he could easily navigate through the town. Mojave Outpost skirted the highway, right on top of the Long 15, but Hank thought he could walk right past without being detected. Changing clothes would be another problem. His Legion clothes would make him an immediate hostile to any traveler. And he really hadn't the need to kill a man for his clothes. Scavenging any buildings between this beach and who-knew-where would have to suffice.
And so, he woke up with his face buried in sand. For a few seconds, he thought about laying there for eternity. To just lay there and die, after a life committed to walking and exploring? Pure bliss.
Yet, something inside him burned. The memory of the slave in the arena, up against odds and fighting valiantly, stirred up the fire that made him want to fight. He wanted, in that moment, nothing more than to fight for the people who couldn't fight for themselves. And so, he pushed himself off the sand, and walked up the beach.
Cliffs surrounded him, and a narrow trail led up to a shingle, and from that shingle he began his walk west.
The land around him lay flat all around him, in every direction. The cliffs fell away sharply to the Colorado. To his right, jutting rocks which looked like mountains surrounded what he believed to be Camp Forlorn Hope, the NCR outpost closest to the front lines. And he knew that across a valley from Camp Forlorn Hope, lay Legion-controlled Nelson. That was his destination.
When he arrived there, he knew one of two things would happen. Either 1) the Legion would accept him and offer him supplies and other sources of aid, or 2) they would declare him a traitor and crucify him. And Hank figured the second option as more plausible. The Legion had never practiced due process; never would, in Hank's opinion. Back in Flagstaff, a Senate ruled similar to a mob, but Caesar still reigned. The Senate held power when Caesar was away on his warpath.
Hank knew a lot of things. Over the years, he had read many novels and intellectual studies. Caesar forbade the study of books in the Legion. In fact, whenever the Legion moved into an area, he ordered the removal of all works, and burned, similar to Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich, which Hank knew about from reading histories of the Second World War.
Surprisingly, Hank thought he would enjoy sanctuary within the NCR. He believed firmly in laissez-faire, especially after reading Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations. Caesar's totalitarianism and half-wit fascism simply did not work.
Nelson entered his line of vision, directly up a small hill from where he walked. Between two tall rock spire formations, a Legion scout stood with binoculars to his eyes. Hank raised his arm and extended his hand in a flat palm. The scout returned his wave. A tall, wooden scout outpost stood next to him at the crest of the hill.
As he trudged up the hill, Hank reviewed his options. If the word had already gotten out that the top explorer had deserted, he was in for some major trouble. His wet clothes would give him away, including the fact that he had trained the majority of the Legion's scouts. They would know him, for sure.
But if the word had not spread, he would be in the clear for a few hours. Which meant, he needed to act fast.
"Ave, true to Caesar!" the scout announced, as he raised another flat palm and slapped the air when Hank approached.
Hank groaned. Not this shtick again. "Yeah, yeah," he half-heartedly raised a palm. The scout raised an eyebrow and hhmmph-ed.
"Do you not be true to Caesar?" he asked.
"You can't handle the truth," murmured Hank.
"What?" the scout asked, confused.
"Don't worry about it," Hank told him. In addition to reading, Hank had grown fond of Pre-War American cinema. Every tape he found, he found a way to watch. Hank had begun walking towards the center of town. Three crosses manufactured by telephone poles stood in the center; each with an NCR soldier mounted onto it. The scout followed him.
Nelson was a squat town, made up of ramshackle houses and dilapidated barracks buildings. The NCR had occupied the town until recently, when the Legion moved in. A party of fifty legionaries had raided, led by the decanus Dead Sea. The houses had been built with no pattern, they all formed a semi-circle from the three telephone poles. To the east, a cliff fell away to the beaches of the Colorado. To the west, a small plateau rose towards Novac, which surrounded the town on all sides, save the cliff. Hank thought he saw a man on top of the plateau next to the road loading east, holding a rifle. However, he couldn't be sure. Finally, with the scout in tow, Hank reached the center of town.
"True to Caesar!" the scout shouted again.
"Yeah, yeah," Hank muttered again.
"Do you not be true to Caesar?"
Hank stopped. "No, I am not. Now, quit asking me, and quit saying that! Caesar is just an angry, bald, short man with a computer on his wrist!"
A collective gasp arose from everywhere, all at once. Legionaries poured from the town's small buildings. The scout stepped back a few paces. "You dare dishonor the almight Caesar, and his powerful displacer glove!" The resident decanus, Dead Sea, stepped slowly from a building. He eyed Hank from behind black goggles and the trademark red face wrap.
"Who is this?" he roared. Hank gulped.
The scout stepped forward, and pointed. "He has dishonored the name of Caesar!" followed by another gasp from everyone.
Dead Sea stared - or at least Hank thought he did. A second scout stepped out of the house behind Dead Sea, and whispered something in his ear. "You must be sure," he replied. The scout nodded, and Dead Sea became silent.
"Are you Apollo, lead Explorer of the Legion?" Hank nodded. "And did you, earlier tonight, jump off of the cliff, therefore deserting your post?" Hank nodded again. "And have you dishonored the name of Caesar?"
At once, every legionary in Nelson slapped the air with a palm and shouted, "Ave, true to Caesar!"
"You are now the Legion's enemy, and our enemy!" Dead Sea shouted. The legionaries yelled and raised their rifles, machetes, and spears into the air.
Hank didn't pay attention; he had begun running. East, down the small path in between two collapsed houses. The air around him erupted, and the wind whipped his clothes. Bullets slammed the frameworks of houses he passed, and chopped the dirt under him. He turned right around the corner of another house, then left, staying eastward. The fifty legionaries had started walking when they noticed he had, and were filling the streets as a collective mob; led by Dead Sea.
A few legionaries followed the turns Hank had taken, and saw him running down the lines of houses two rows over from the plateau wall. They tailed him, firing occasionally. The remainding force continued down the street, shouting and shooting along the way.
Hank ducked as a bullet slammed an overhanging roof he had run under. At the next corner he turned left, back towards the main street. A low stone fence made a square in the space between two houses, and Hank guessed that before the Great War, it had contained a garden. He slid over the top and rolled into a prone position. The raucous happenings grew closer as the mob marched down the street, growing close. Bullets pelted houses around him, throwing bits of dust, brick, and wood everywhere. Hank, crouched up against the wall bordering the street, knew they hadn't seen him. He was worried about the few that had followed him around the houses.
The mob passed moments later, nearly fifty legionaries walking and searching for their prey. For a second, the madness ceased as Dead Sea called attention. Hank's heart jumped into his throat; he had been made.
"Did anyone see where he went?" Dead Sea asked the crowd.
"No," one legionary spoke, "I thought we were just walking and having a good time."
"Yeah!" said another. "Who're we looking for?"
"That guy!" someone answered. "Remember? The one who said Caesar's displacer glove was a computer."
"Oh! Him? I think he went down this street somewhere."
"Then we must continue down the street!" Dead Sea yelled, and the gig was on again. The mob moved down the street, shouting and shooting and making miscellaneous noises.
Hank breathed a sigh of relief, and slumped down until he was flat on the ground. Dusting himself off, he stood up and walked back to the back street he had come. As he passed a corner, two men jumped him. One lunged, knocking him off of his feet. Twisting, Hank unraveled himself from the man's grasp and kicked out with his boot, kicking him in the chest. His attacker fell back, and Hank rolled forward and into the next man, who had been raising a nine millimeter pistol. Hank swatted the gun aside a let loose a quick barage of punches.
The pistol skittered away on the ground, and Hank dove for it. The legionary he kicked had regained his composure and rolled towards the gun on the ground. Hank was quicker, scooped it into his hands, and fired two quick shots at the man near his feet. The bullets struck the man in the neck, and blood squirted as the jugular vein popped. Hank wheeled around and shot twice more at the other, striking him in the chest. He slumped and joined his friend. And Hank stood at the gift-wrapping end of the pistol, and listened. He heard the sounds of silence.
He had been made.