"God have mercy on us all. You're slated to be the Vault's new administrator."

I blinked. All I did was choose the nicest answers for all the questions... why was our Overseer such a bastard, then?

What a way to start the day. Squinting up through the dust at Jim, his balding head lit up by the sun right behind him like the most dickheaded angel you'd ever meet. But something was different- something that made the dread in my stomach hit the boiling point. He usually waltzed around the Trough with his shirt off, not paying any mind to the dead skin he shedded everywhere. But today he was wearing a leather vest, all sewn over with pieces of scrap metal like a flak jacket.

"What-?" I propped up my M1 Garand like a cane to support myself as I pushed myself to my feet, wobbling a little on my right leg. I leaned back against the sheet metal wall of the armory, and looked a bit closer at Jim.

His Colt M1911 was held loosely in his fingers, the hammer clicking up and down as his thumb played with it. He usually was kind of twitchy like this... but today, I could see the excitement bubbling right underneath his sunburned skin. "Splitfinger's spotted kick-up to the east. Comin' in hot. Gonna be good. Gonna be good!" he was practically bouncing up and down on his toes.

I gulped, my throat dry. Jim had always creeped me out before, but the way that yellow-toothed grin never left his face was something out of a fucking nightmare. "Okay. Okay. How- how long?"

"Fuck knows! Can't wait!" and like that he just skipped off to the eastern bank of the outpost, where- now as I looked- more of the raiders were readying themselves. Whistlethroat, Shankteeth, Hoofhead- I put names to as many raiders as I could, angry at myself that I even tried to remember. But for every raider I could name two or three more came along, sharpening their knives, loading their guns, looking more sadistic than usual.

For a minute, I just stood there, not sure what to do. I had never been in a real firefight before. I mean, I had skirmished some two-bit badlanders before, but Jericho and I had always been the one to spring the ambush, or have some sort of trap set up. This... this was different. I just felt like an oversized target, bonus points for the shiny thing stuck around my neck.

God, I had no one. For the first time since I stumbled out of the Vault, blinded by the sun and confused by the wind, I had no one to go back-to-back with in a fight.

So I just stood there, scared and not really sure what to do. Get up front, with the sandbags and stacked cars and sheet metal barriers and all that? Nah, I'd get shot at first. The guard towers? No, not enough cover. Sit in the armory and wait to die? That sounded like a good idea. The best damn idea I'd had ever since I decided to tag along after dear old Dad.

I turned, walked around the outside of the armory, and took a single step inside the dark musty shed of a building. Then I stopped.

Clutching pistols and rifles unsteadily, a group of kids were huddled at the back corner of the armory. At the front, I recognized the boy who I split my rations with. He looked up from his MAS Mod le 36 long enough to notice me, and went back to cleaning out the chamber.

I felt sick. Sicker than usual. I walked forward unsteadily, stopping before the boy and dropping to my good knee. "Kid," I whispered.

He looked up again. His eyes were oddly blank.

"You're... gonna fight?"

He nodded and wordlessly went back to his rifle, his nails red with rust, his fingers pinched from the bolt mechanism. But he kept at it, as did the rest of the kids.

Something hot was behind my eyes, and I squeezed them shut. Why... how... I couldn't even put words to it anymore. Jim, the sickest son of a bitch I had ever met, all of these worthless bastards, and these kids, damned to join their ranks-

I couldn't take it. I clamped my mouth shut, stumbled out of the armory, and maybe made it ten feet before I hit the dirt and starting throwing up. I came up dry, with a bit of mashed up grass- rations were tight the past few days, maybe some water here and there- but my throat muscles were still spasming, my stomach clenching painfully.

Fuck this wasteland. Fuck this world. How could people have made such a place? There was nothing nothing nothing in the slides about this everyone was smiling and happy and strong and nothing bad ever happened-

A shadow came over me, and I weakly looked up from the ground to see Cutter. There wasn't a hint of cruelty or spite in his face- there wasn't anything at all. It was all in his eyes. It was like looking into a sewer and knowing stuff was down there but not sure how far and what it really was

He walked away towards the front line, his board full of nails resting on his shoulder. The crazy fuck didn't even have a gun.

Okay. Okay. I pushed myself back onto my ass and stared up at the sky, pulling my threadbare duster around me tight. If there was anything to be positive about, I thought dimly, it was that all of this insane bullshit still bothered me. The second I started taking it for what it is- I'd be a goner, be no better than the empty-eyed fucks I was employed by.

A warm breeze picked up- making the already hot day even shittier- and I made my way up to the front gates of the Trough. I gave everything a pretty thorough look- the moat surrounding the outpost, filled with sharpened stakes, the barbed-razor wire that seemed to cover everything like rusty cobwebs, the patched up sandbags, the piles of scrap metal serving as cover. I glanced back over my shoulder, wondering how the other side of the camp was fortified compared to this, and realized that the entire fucking outpost was watching me.

I turned around awkwardly and met their stare. I guess I should've expected this... I was their trump card. They had starved for months to buy the collar around my neck, and they wanted to see if the guy stuck in it was worth their pain.

Jim, I noticed, was out of the outpost completely, testing the points of the stakes in the moat. His hands were bleeding, but he didn't notice or liked the color.

I jogged- limped, anyway- over to him, feeling everyone's eyes lasering into my back. Nothing like being the center of attention. "Uh... Jim."

"Huh." He wiped his hands off on his camouflage pants, only to go right back to testing the points.

"Look. Um... they, uh... gonna flank?"

"What?"

"What if they flank?" I said again, working my mouth. Fuck, talking was harder than anything else out here.

"Ugh. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah." Jim waved a bloody hand towards the flanks of the outpost. "Mines."

My stomach tightened automatically. "Wha... what?"

"Mines. You know, they eat legs and shit shrapnel."

I nodded weakly. "And... the back... ?"

"Even more mines. It's like a mine orgy all around us. Kept the front all tidy, though. Want to keep the way open for visitors!" he clapped his hands together, satisfied with the sharpness of the moat's bottom. "Yeah, so... make yourself useful. Splitfinger said they're pretty much here."

I felt the blood leave my face. Jim shouldered past me and walked through the sheet iron gate, through the crowd of raiders watching us.

"Okay," I mumbled to myself. "Okay." I guess running is for it wouldn't work either. Fuck, did it have to be land mines? The stabbing moat I could deal with, but Christ I can't look at a mine anymore without feeling my organs slosh.

Turning around on my heel, I jogged back to the front line. There was a nice spot- nicer than the rest, anyway- of some sandbags plated with metal. Wasn't really any better than the rest of the cover, but I sat myself down, moved around so I didn't have a rock up my ass, put my M1 Garand across my knees, and waited. The .30-06 Springfield rounds in my duster pocket were a comforting weight against my side. The only comfort I had. That I could die putting up a fight.

"That's my spot."

I opened my eyes to see Hacksaw glaring down at me. One of her hands was on the Smith and Wesson Model 10 at her waist, the other on the handle of her namesake hacksaw. This close, I could see that it was actually pretty blunt. And it has stuff stuck in the teeth... stuff that looked like bone fragments and hair. Oh, God. I looked back to her eyes. She wasn't as totally insane as Cutter, so at least I didn't get the chills from her. I mean, shit, Hacksaw almost made me feel brave.

"Then sit down, babe," I purred (not) smoothly, setting aside the M1 Garand and patting my lap. Her face twisted into a snarl as the raiders still sticking around to watch me gave a few barking chuckles. I was probably about to get brained then and there before Jim showed up, all smiles.

"What? Joining us here? Fucking good. Now I can really watch you tear shit up, hundred," said Jim cheerfully, plopping down next to me and peering eastward over the sandbags. "Ha! Good timing!"

Almost immediately the raiders scattered, melting into cover like they were the scrap and sandbags themselves. Hacksaw dove down next to me, all anger forgotten (or put away for later, whatever). I just sat there, eyes wide, not sure what was coming to the gate. I... didn't want to look and see.

Splitfinger sprinted past us and through the gate, almost giving me a heart attack. "At the rock!" he chirped as he slid into cover, his necklace of fingers seeming to scratch at his throat with the movement.

The... rock. A marker of sorts, I guess, because everyone around me tensed up, veins popping out green and purple as they gripped their rifles, red dots on their skin from where they shot up their chems- except for Jim. He just pulled out another two magazine for his M1911 and laid them on the ground, calm as could be.

From where I was sitting, I noticed a few wisps of dust beginning to float over us. Then, almost too quickly to be real, a wave of dust came down on us, cloaking everything in brown, blocking out the sun, turning the outpost into an unbearable oven. Wind was going west, pushing up all the kicked-up dirt from the incoming raiders.

That rock couldn't have been far away, but it felt like I would die of old age (merciful alternative, really) before anything happened. For some odd reason, I glanced at my Pip-Boy. Felt like I hadn't noticed the thing in days... with good reason. Screen as cracked, dust had gotten in it, map was useless. The only thing it was good for now was the clock, when the light hit the screen just right and made the numbers legible.

It was 2:16. Crazy, huh?

Jim popped out of cover with what I could only guess what his raider battle cry: "FUCK Y'ALL!" And his pistol said the rest.

At his call, the raiders of the Trough let loose with their guns, and you could say the shit hit the fan.

I peeked over the sandbags, wondering what their- my enemies looked like. But the dust was still thick- the hill to the east of the outpost just seemed to be crawling with shadows. A few would stumble and roll the rest of the way and not get up- that'd get a cheer from the raiders.

But after five or six or seven or however many of these invaders fell, and as I began to idiotically hope I could just sit here and let Jim and Hacksaw do all the shooting for me- I looked over the sandbags one more time, and stared.

They broke out of the wave of dust, seeming to carry their own wind. Sand and dirt blew all around them, bullets flew past, spurted up dirt and rock from the ground- but they headed on. Even from my distance, I could see their armor- heavily boiled leather, plated with beaten steel, all of it dyed black.

All black, except for the four-finger claw carved into each breastplate.

"TALON COMPANY!" one screamed, followed by another, and another. They came with the dust, sprinting across open ground, not once looking back if one of their own were downed. The shots from their Colt M16A2's were short, controlled, completely unlike the wild fire of the Trough raiders. Some wore helmets, metal masks shaped into horrible nightmarish faces, or just black cowls flapping in the wind.

Jericho had told me about them. As I sat there, cowering behind those sandbags and trying to block out the battle cries and the ringing gunshots, all I could remember was Jericho ranting on and on about how only the sickest of the sickest fucks were recruited into Talon Company, the meanest mercs around. Jericho had been approached, once, he had said to me pridefully. And had the many scars to prove it; they didn't take no for an answer.

So there went all of my confidence. A good shot? Sure. But there's a line you don't cross if you want to live, and by God I was holding onto it with my fingernails now.

But if I didn't fight, I'd have to answer to Jim and his minions, so either way... a .45 ACP shell casing hit the ground, completing the thought for me.

I crept up, jostling Hacksaw (who barely noticed me) just enough to get the muzzle over the rim of the bags, and scanned the field. There were a lot less dead on the ground than I hoped, and a hell of a lot more mercs than I had imagined. From the way bullets were raining on us, they must've been staying back, giving us steady waves, trying to feel us out.

I peered down the sight, absently thinking to myself that despite it being warped and rusted, still worked pretty well. I carefully guessed the distance, the speed, and drew a bead on a Talon merc moving up a bit slower than the others, taking more accurate shots. Three hundred feet... I could just get him in the ear, under the helmet...

Another merc, out of his mind, came bearing for the gate at full speed, spraying rounds as he roared. Most few overhead, but some skirted the bags and one caught some raider to my right in the throat. He dropped his rifle, stumbled back and rolled around in the dust, clutching his throat as if hoping to strangle himself before he bled out. He bumped up next to me, a pitiful whine whistling through the hole in his neck.

I swung the M1 Garand to the left and placed a bullet through the head of the sprinter, who tumbled and rolled through the dirt and sand for a good ten feet. The raider at my side didn't see it, but I leaned over him and said quietly in his ear-

"Got him."

The raider looked at me with glazing eyes, understanding. I turned back to the fight, not wanting to watch him die.

So, I could kill. All I felt was the stock bump my shoulder. No regret, no anger, so nausea- okay, maybe a little nausea- but not much else. Guess I still had what it took.

Jim patted me on the shoulder as I took aim again. I felt even more nauseated.

We had cover, but they had numbers, better aim, and better armor. I shot a merc twice in the chest before I realized that their plating wasn't there for show, and I took aim for the legs, blowing out his knee in two tries.

I flinched whenever a bullet, stray or not, landed too close, sometimes ducking back fully into cover. I glanced at Hacksaw, expecting her to be scowling at me in disdain- but she was doing the same, sliding .38 Special rounds into her revolver's cylinder with shaking fingers. God, she couldn't have been much older than me.

A comparatively loud roar of "TALON COMPANY!" boomed from the dust again, and another wave stormed out to meet us. I don't know how many they had lost- maybe thirty or more were on the ground, but most were still moving, some even still shooting prone. Whenever I took cover, it seemed more and more of ours would be dead or dying. I think Splitfinger was one of the first to go, a ricocheting bullet going through his hand, an aimed one going through his chest when he struggled to steady his MAT-49. Gutmash was a bit ahead of us, a bullet-ridden sack of meat at the edge of the field. He had tried to sneak into the moat, shoot at the mercs' feet or something. I didn't see Cutter. I did see a lot more bodies I didn't know, though.

I smiled- half of my face did, anyway- as I took up my position again and fired at a merc aiming his Remington M24 a bit too well for my comfort, catching him below the shoulder and through the upper chest. It was nice to know that these bastard raiders would be dead at the end of the day. I would be too, but it seemed like a decent price to pay at the time. I mean, shit, I would've gone and fought with the Talon mercs if Jim didn't have the detonator to my collar.

The rusting pieces in my head finally clicked as one of my bullets harmlessly went by another sprinter's head. Jim... had my detonator...

I glanced back again, handloading some rounds into my rifle as I did.. The Trough raiders were getting gunned down left and right, leaving maybe half of their band left. The mercs were picking up the pace, the waves denser. They knew we were done for. They weren't even trying.

The raiders were all preoccupied with the onslaught. I patted Jim on the shoulder. He looked back at me absently.

"Jim?" I yelled over the gunfire.

"Yeah, hundred?"

"Fuck you." I raised the M1 Garand and fired, but Jim wasn't stupid. He swung his Colt M1911 around as I fired, his bullet cutting a path across my right cheek. But my bullet cut a path through his brain.

He fell back, and I laughed. Laughed. What a stupid way to die. Betrayed by someone who hated you in the first place. I underestimated him, but in the end- in the end-

Hacksaw dropped back into cover, looked at the picture, and raised her revolver- but this time I was ready, and the hole in her stomach sent her to the ground.

"Fucker!" I couldn't hear her, but I could read her lips. I noticed the syrettes on her belt, that morphine she guarded so closely, and helped myself, sticking them in a duster pocket. She kicked and choked on dust and pulled at the hand of her hacksaw, but I paid her no mind as I took Jim's M1911 and the spare mag. And the detonator, of course.

I fired a spray of blind fire with my rifle, and ducking low, sprinted my way back into the middle of camp, weaving between cover and dodging friendly fire. It wouldn't be friendly once they figured out what happened to Jim... but the raiders didn't give me a glance. Guess they thought I was heading to the armory.

Huh, wait...

I turned the corner around the shed that served as a mess hall and caught my breath, only to keep moving again. A few more long steps, and I was in front of the armory.

"Kid!" I yelled hoarsely.

My eyes adjusted to the darkness, and I realized I had a hell of a lot of guns pointed at me.

"Kid," I said again. The pale boy took a step forward, his rifle thankfully lowered.

"Look. The fight's fucked. No chance. Everyone's gonna die. Come on. We gotta run. We all gotta run!" I explained to them anxiously. But... they all just looked at me. The pale boy shook his head, and melted back into the darkness of the armory, the Trough's last line of defense.

"No! Dammit! Kid-"

A shot rang out, striking the wall right next to me. I turned and ran. Ran my ass off, fueled by nothing but bitterness as I climbed over the wall of cars and metal at the west of camp and carefully lowered myself into the spiky moat.

He made his choice. Nothing you can do.

He's gonna die.

Nothing you can do.

I climbed out of the moat, covered in scratches and splinters, and ran west, hopping over the mines just like how gray-eyed girl taught me.

All I can do now is run.