A/N: I'm afraid I've fudged the chronology with TFW: Thistle here a little. That is, I haven't actually accounted for enough time (so this story is probably compressed by a few months).

10

Xen woke up feeling stiff and sore. There was a clotted, thick feeling in the back of her throat. She coughed, wondering why it smelled so bad in the Lab. She hadn't been planning to dissect anything...

She squinted her eyes open and immediately scissored her inner lids closed. The light went from painfully bright to warm and dim. Xen fumbled under the pillow for her goggles and put them on. She lay on her side, looking at the translucent, cloudy surface of a plastic divider. Underworld. I made it.

That made her feel a little better during the subsequent five minutes, which she spent sitting on the edge of the bed, coughing. She tried to keep it as quiet as possible. It wasn't the fault of whoever-it-was that she was evidently allergic to cigarette smoke. Camel didn't try to give her an epinephrine stim. The fact that she was coughing meant her air passage was still clear.

Finally, she managed to get upright. She staggered over and dug a bottle of water out of the net that dangled from the packbot's three arms. A drink washed the foul taste from her mouth, and she felt a little better.

"Camel," she said. "How long did I sleep?"

"Nine hours," said the packbot.

Xen sighed. She'd hoped to be awake sooner. But then, she could have told the packbot to wake her. She took another drink and put the bottle away. "All right. Let's go down to the restrooms."

With her muscles stiff and uncooperative, it took longer than usual to get through her morning routine. She washed herself as best she could at the sink, with her goggles off and her eyes closed. She changed her clothes in a stall and gave the dirty ones to Camel to clean. The bot laid down her cargo net near Xen as she went to work at a sink.

Xen kept an eye on Camel and the luggage through a crack between the stall door and the doorpost. A couple of Ghoul women stared at the packbot as they performed their own ablutions, but no one said anything. As she brushed her thin hair, Xen tried to concentrate on her plans for the day. She was hungry. There were benches outside where she could sit. Maybe after she ate, she would be able to think of a way to get the information she needed. She was feeling strangely reluctant to just choose a person and talk to them.

No one had been rude to her. In fact, for what her research said was an oppressed minority, they seemed very tolerant of her presence. But everyone looked at her when they thought she wasn't looking. It made her feel hot and uncomfortable, as if her skin were too small for her. She wasn't able to enjoy the fascinating array of variations on display as much as she'd hoped. Some Ghouls were even walking around with exposed spinal vertebrae, something an ordinary human could never survive. But then, they're not vulnerable to ordinary diseases, so infection isn't a risk.

Camel dried the clothes surprisingly quickly by holding them up in front of her exhaust ports. Xen shook them out, folded them, and packed them when she had finished with her hair. Camel took up the net and cargo easily.

"Have you done your 24 hour diagnostic yet?" Xen asked.

"Affirmative. All systems are performing optimally."

"Good," Xen said. "Continue diagnostics and report any anomalies. You're doing great so far."

She ate her breakfast sitting on the only vacant bench outside. Ghouls looked at her sometimes, but no one sat down beside her. Would it have been like this all the time, if I had grown up around humans? Xen wondered. If the Doctors had decided to keep me, and if they had lived?

But then, these people just think I'm a sick-looking human, someone who'll look down on them because their skin falls off. Imagine if they knew what I really am.

Well, at least there was no chance anyone would guess. Xen looked around for inspiration. There was a sign above a door nearby. It said Underworld Outfitters. That seemed as good a place to start as any. Xen disposed of her packaging in the nearest trash can (she wondered who emptied them) and went inside.

Shelves lined the walls, stacked up with ammunition, weapons, and various objects. A light-skinned Ghoul stared at her across a counter that held a cash register and a computer terminal.

"A customer!" she said. She wore a cropped denim jacket that showed her peeling abdominal muscles. "I don't see many new faces around here. Especially not smoothskins."

"So I hear," said Xen.

"I'm Tulip. What brings you to Underworld?"

"I want to go to a place in the North," said Xen. The stranger hadn't asked her name, so she didn't give it. "I was hoping to find someone who could tell me about the route."

"Oh. No, I can't help you there. I haven't been out of town in ages." Tulip stared at her frankly. "Are you going to be sick?"

"No, I always look this way," said Xen. "Do you know who could tell me?"

"Not really. Most of us don't get out much, and the ones who really travel are all out of town now. You just missed Thistle. I think she went with Fawkes and that clone to see if she could get work from the Brotherhood of Steel. To be honest," Tulip said, and hesitated.

"What?" Xen asked.

"I kind of thought you might be here for Charon."

"Who's that?" Xen asked.

"He's the bouncer up at the 9th Circle. Ahzrukhal's been saying he's willing to sell his contract, if somebody comes along with enough caps. I'd buy it myself, even, but Ahz wouldn't sell to me. He knows I want him dead."

This didn't make very much sense to Xen, but it seemed an avenue worth pursuing. "Do you know how much he wants?" she asked.

"A couple of thousand caps, probably. Charon's worth more than just a slave."

"I see," said Xen, who didn't. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it," said Tulip. "Be careful out there. You look kind of young to be out on your own."

"I'm older than I look," said Xen. This, technically speaking, was true. Camel followed her back out onto the concourse. She bit her lip on a groan as she struggled up the stairs. Every muscle felt like a band of sun-rotted plastic, stiff and brittle. It will take me a long time to get to the crash site if I feel like this every morning, she thought. One thing at a time.

"Buying an adult male slave is not an optimal solution," said Camel. "Particularly one with physical combat training. If he intended you harm, it is possible he would be able to deactivate me before I could kill him."

"That would take very unusual reflexes, for a human," said Xen. "And you're advising without being asked again. Are you going to do that a lot?"

"I have been instructed to attempt to verbally prevent you from taking unnecessary risks."

"Anyway, I'm not planning to buy him," Xen said. "I don't know that he'd be able to guide us North if I did."

"You do not require a guide. I have the necessary geographic information."

"But you don't know anything about local conditions," said Xen. "That's the problem. What if we run into some kind of creature I don't have documentation for?"

"Then I will shoot it," said Camel.

"That's a logic error, and you know it. I know the power level on your laser," Xen pointed out. "It's not enough to take down a deathclaw with one shot unless you get it right through the eyeball. And if you are destroyed, I'll be alone without a way to navigate or carry the things that I can't live without. We could use a disposable backup."

"Your argument contains an inherent biologically-derived reasoning error," said Camel.

"You mean a wetware logic malfunction," said Xen. "All right, I know you got that from Tori."

"You will not regard a slave as disposable for more than the first few days. If he does not attempt to attack us, you will form an interpersonal affinity for this person which will make it difficult, if not impossible, for you to sacrifice him."

"You can't know that," said Xen. "Maybe I won't like him. And I'm not going get all hormonal over a male Ghoul just because I haven't been around boys."

"It is not sexual attraction to which I refer. You are barely post-adolescent. You have largely human instincts but limited human contact to date," said the packbot. "You will form attachments easily with any degree of proximity over time. Already you would regret it if it became necessary for me to destroy Cerberus."

"That's not true," said Xen, and was aware that her darkening complexion was proving her a liar. "Well, all right, it is true, but only because he reminds me of Tori."

Camel remained silent. The packbot had no face to speak of, nor any feature capable of conveying smugness, but Xen read it all the same.

"I'm going to find out about this," said Xen. "I can't operate under an information deficit. Just follow me, watch for overt threats, and try to refrain from being overly helpful."

"Acknowledged," said Camel.

Xen bit her tongue and turned to walk on. She knew a fair number of obscene or profane words. The ones Tori and Bob Masterson didn't use were in computer records she'd read. She just wasn't used to using them. After all, Bunni never had. And the only time she'd heard one of the Doctors swear was just before they both died.

She pushed open the door to the 9th Circle and went inside.

A second later she stepped quickly out again, feeling the unmistakable sensation of her throat swelling shut. "Epi," she croaked, and slapped her left palm over one of Camel's joints. She felt a tiny jab. Her heart rate jumped as the adrenaline shot through her circulatory system. Her throat cleared, leaving her shaky and weak. She leaned against the wall and coughed.

"Visual on the interior indicates this is a tavern or drinking establishment," said Camel. "Cigarette smoking by several patrons at once is very common under such circumstances."

"Could've said that earlier," Xen said over the pounding in her ears. She held her palm against the seam of her jeans to hide the color of her blood.

"You did not ask," said Camel. "It is probable that the CNS overstimulation resulting from the epinephrine dose will impair your judgment. You should remain out here."

Xen stared at the packbot. She hovered silently in place, impassive as ever.

"Give me a gel dot," she said finally. "Then run silent until told to speak." She was angry, but even under a forced adrenaline rush, she could stay on top of that. A lifetime of training had taught her that there was nothing to be gained by ranting at an inorganic person. Probably under Tori's instructions to protect her from harm, Camel was trying to manipulate her by exploiting her emotional responses. Therefore, she would not reveal any emotional response. The physiological temperature change that came with anger was another thing, of course, but that would be masked by the fever-heat generated by her response to the adrenaline. She was already sweating under her clothes.

"Acknowledged," said Camel. The bot rotated to expose another leg. A tiny bead of cloudy blue gel appeared at a pinprick hole in the knobby joint. Xen pressed her hand over it, then shook it quickly to encourage the gel to dry. She couldn't bleed to death through such a small hole, but the thin hemolymph that served her for blood would not clot quickly. She would continue to bleed for a long time, and the epinephrine would exacerbate rather than help that.

"Stay here unless I call you," said Xen. She took a ragged breath and turned to go back into the 9th Circle.