The Way Forward

Synopsis: (Continuation of Ensnared) In the sadistic dredges of society, Gabriel finds himself taking on a protective role; Sage's quest to find him comes into friction with her duty as a leader. (Rated M for substance abuse, offscreen torture, medical unpleasantness)


Arizona, 2268.

Despite a year of basic training and over five years of personal combat instruction with the legate, Gabriel was promptly put in charge of managing Qavrok's small gaggle of captives. It was grisly work. His mandate was simply to "deal with them," and that took many forms largely left to Gabriel's interpretation. The contract usually didn't allow a lot of judgment calls, so Gabriel was even further out of his element. As broad as his orders were, he took it to mean simply "Keep them alive."

And that was easier said than done.

Butterfly, whose real name was Audrey, continued to be unfailingly sweet and have no concept of boundaries. She was the youngest of the four, two years older than Gabriel, and had been a prisoner the longest. Her parents' caravan had been ambushed by hungry Fiends and scattered. She'd been unarmed, so they'd taken her, and Qavrok had staked his claim. She was understandably tight-lipped about the incident, but she told Gabriel about her cellmates to pass time between the closet and the throneroom.

Avi had been added only a few days after Butterfly. It took far too long for Gabriel to realize that his second charge wasn't actually a woman. If not for the timbre of his voice and the strength of his attacks, Gabriel might not even have known to ask. Avi had stopped fighting, then, and clarified that, yes, he was a man. He'd seemed so spiteful about this fact that Gabriel had ceased his questioning. (He hadn't meant to be rude, but these people played by different rules than the Legion.)

The Fiend "doctors" gave Avi some sort of injection every morning. He was consistently morose, and like the others (except for Butterfly), he fought when Gabriel escorted him to Qavrok. He was sickly and frail for a man, especially by Legion standards, but his blows were more than just an annoyance, and Gabriel honestly started to hate him for it. The attacks, though, were borne of panic more than malice, so he never retaliated.

Several months after Avi, Violet had been added to their number. Like him, she was a former Fiend who'd crossed Qavrok at the wrong time. Butterfly told Gabriel that she had been quiet, no less sane than the average junkie. Then, after a particularly harrowing session with the Fiend King, she'd started on a downhill slope that still hadn't plateaued. When Gabriel had to escort her places, she bit and twitched and screamed the whole way. He started wearing gloves, unsure what diseases she might infect him with if she managed to sink her teeth in.

Violet was a hard character to figure out (but Gabriel tried, if only for lack of anything better to do). She liked to sing and sometimes did it to calm herself. Avi had taught her some ancient rhyme about a dog in a window, and she would blare it at the top of her lungs, ending with sad little woofs of laughter. When she stilled, Gabriel could see nail marks that he doubted came from Qavrok all over her pitch-black skin.

The final captive was named Xan. She was somewhere in her 20's and looked notably healthier than the others, being a relatively recent arrival. She'd been with a mercenary company hired to wipe out the band of Fiends causing mayhem throughout the area. They'd planned the assault for months, but far underestimated the Fiends' numbers. Qavrok had taken the injured Xan as a prisoner of war. She had a lot of fight left in her, which her monstrous captor had made it his mission to extinguish. She bore the marks of it constantly. Her tongue was split down the middle, and she usually had a broken bone or two that Qavrok's stimpaks couldn't fully heal. Unsurprisingly, she took it all out on Gabriel.

The four were incredibly tight-knit, as any group of mutual survivors would be. Gabriel only saw snapshots — when he was around, they mostly just waited for him to leave — but he often opened the door to hugging, gentle conversations, the occasional emotional breakdown into another's arms. He certainly wouldn't have switched places with them, but seeing it only exacerbated his loneliness.

Qavrok was no help. The contract forbade any physical violence between them, but Gabriel wasn't immune to his employer's sadistic tendencies. He followed orders, always, whether Qavrok had him experimenting with chems, accompanying raiding parties, or sitting through the myriad of horrors that happened in the Fiend King's throneroom.

Today's orders were especially heinous.


Bloody knuckles throbbed at the end of arms that didn't feel like Gabriel's. He resolutely looked at anything but them, looked away from the man gasping for breath on the concrete floor. The only other thing his eyes could find to focus on was him. Qavrok. His employer didn't laugh this time. He just stared glassily at his victim-by-proxy, memorizing the details.

Avi's taut muscles went limp with exhaustion when he realized the blows weren't about to recommence. His arms still cradled his head and neck protectively. Months ago, Gabriel had worried about breaking those twiglike limbs. In hindsight, he wasn't sure he'd been worried enough. Gabriel had never unleashed his full adult strength onto a defenseless person, and he'd underestimated the sheer destruction he was capable of.

"Thanks. Goodbye," said Qavrok simply. The cocktail of substances firing through his brain had him acting weirder than usual, and crueler. He waddled over to his throne and slumped down, rapidly losing consciousness.

"Wait," Gabriel stopped him, wiping his gloves on his armor. "Avi needs healing."

Qavrok blinked, as if remembering Avi was still there. "Mm. No. My sm'paks."

Gabriel lowered his voice. "He's going to die."

"'He.' Haha..." Qavrok liked to pretend that Avi was a woman, just to add insult to injury. The man loved to witness pain from anyone, but he seemed to have something personal against Avi. "Jus' do whaddever you needta keep'r alive..."

Gabriel paused. "Am I to understand that you are relaxing any standing orders that may restrict me from this?"

Qavrok's jaw was slack and his eyes were unfocused. Gabriel wasn't going to get any answers — or stimpaks — out of him until tomorrow.

He forced his gaze back towards the man shuddering on the floor. Avi's already-filthy dress was soaked with fresh blood. His skin bloomed black and purple where it could be seen through its thick layer of filth. He was truly wretched, and a part of Gabriel born in the Legion considered it a cruelty not to put him out of his misery here and now.

Gabriel felt more disgust than guilt. He'd stopped blaming himself for the things he did under orders. He'd proven, undeniably, that there was no resisting his programming anymore. Still, he had a responsibility toward this whimpering pile of flesh.

Picking Avi up seemed insecure and floppy, and besides, he weighed a little too much to carry comfortably. Gabriel settled on a fireman carry, and managed to haul the man to his room without too much additional pain, Qavrok's half-full vodka bottle hanging from one hand.

Gabriel's room was located in an office space near the open throneroom. It was much nicer than most Fiends' living quarters, though that wasn't saying much at all. It had its own bathroom, a wooden desk, and a bedframe with an ancient mattress. Gabriel was going to be sleeping on top of a giant bloodstain from now on, but it wasn't as if the bed had been pristine beforehand.

Avi was conscious, but out of it. Gabriel didn't think he'd hit him in the head, though Qavrok had gotten several blows in too. His confusion was probably due to blood loss — a serious problem, since they didn't have a stimpak. Gabriel grabbed the towels he used as blankets and cut them apart with his combat knife for tourniquets, bandages, and rags for the vodka. It was messy, hasty work, and Gabriel had only basic training as a battlefield medic, but he managed to stabilize his patient for the moment. Avi's breaths, sharp and weak, spurred him onward.

He raided the Fiends' communal storage afterwards — usually a violation of his contract, since it all belonged to Qavrok, but special permission was special permission — for a needle and thread. He found the needle, but no thread, and had to pick apart a threadbare child's mitten that someone had for some reason. It took precious time, and Avi was passed out by the time he returned to his room.

Gabriel lit a small fire for sterilization using gunpowder and paper money, then set to work. After a few passes of the needle through his skin, Avi jolted awake and tried to squirm away. Gabriel paused while the injured man got his bearings, watching to make sure panicked hands didn't rip at the half-stitched slice on his thigh. Avi was no stranger to needles, though, and he disappeared into his own mind as Gabriel worked.

Seventeen had always seemed so old when Gabriel had been young. He didn't know if there was an age where a person could begin to tolerate living conditions like this, but he hadn't reached it yet. He wanted to be small, and to curl up next to his mother and feel safe again. But he was six feet tall and still growing, his mother was nowhere to be found, and he had just beaten a man half to death for no discernible reason.

In hindsight, though, it was all flesh wounds. Avi must have been through this sort of thing before, because he knew exactly how to curl up to protect the important parts. Gabriel began a much grislier phase of the process: he'd fashioned a passable splint out of a metal pipe, and he would have to set the bone in order to fasten it into place on Avi's leg. The elbow was also displaced, another nasty fix that Gabriel wasn't entirely trained for.

A hum began deep in the teenager's throat, bubbling up from some buried memory. A song sung around campfires, as the men celebrated a good hunt and an adult whose face he couldn't remember braided his long, flaming hair. He chased the feeling of smallness, trying to ward away the nastiness of what happened not long after.

When he came back to himself, the splinting and relocating was finished, and he'd wrapped both wrists as well. Avi was watching him curiously, bleary but no longer delirious.

"What's that song called?" he asked pleasantly, hoping for a new distraction.

"In English, 'The Wind Accepts Our Thanks.'"

"Oh yeah? What are you thankful for?"

"The same as you," Gabriel dismissed bitterly.

"I'm thankful for three things, and they're all sleeping in a broom closet right now." Avi shifted and winced.

"In that case, I'm thankful for two fewer things than you are."

Avi smiled, not offended. "Yeah, Butterfly's sweet. She always says you're not so bad. Imagine my surprise that she's right."

"When did you become so friendly?"

"When I broke all my bones and needed a distraction to keep from losing the rest of my mind"

"Find another distraction," Gabriel muttered, and exited the room.


Avi's eyes flicked open when Gabriel checked his heartbeat. The vodka bottle was on the bed next to him, empty. Pleased to find him alive, Gabriel sat on the ground and began chopping at Xander roots with his combat knife. It would need sharpening after this. Qavrok wasn't likely to give him a new one if he asked.

He'd been out foraging for several hours, confident that Qavrok was too zonkered to notice his absence. Under normal circumstances, he was strictly required to remain in the base, where Qavrok could order him around through the PA system. Avi and the others also had to stay in their little cell, but that place was a nasty infection waiting to happen.

Avi was significantly more relaxed now. Gabriel listened to his labored breathing as a metronome for his chopping. He'd meant to mix healing powder into water, but he'd recently learned that cave fungus grew plentifully in the base's lower levels, and he thought he might be able to make a healing poultice from memory, as long ago as it had been.

Avi nursed a bottle of water, not quite ready to hold down food. They continued without speaking, content to go about their business. Avi's pain seemed lessened, but healing poultices used tribal methods that sent a deep ache straight to the bone, causing an insistent stiffness for another hour or so. Regardless, it would do the job.

"You should've been a doctor instead of a warden," Avi muttered, listening to the quick chops of the knife and the growing indoor campfire that wafted out the open door.

"This is tribal medicine. Anything else is beyond me," said Gabriel dismissively.

"You were so calm when you patched me up," he continued, voice contentedly lazy. "Can't believe you're only sixteen."

"Seventeen," Gabriel snapped, less annoyed than he pretended to be at the praise. "And you are drunk."

"Nah, it's worn off. Anyway, Fiends don't do well sober. Maybe that's why I'm always so nasty to you. Or because you're so strong and healthy... or, you were," Avi continued carelessly.

Gabriel touched his thinning hair and yellowing nails absentmindedly. This place had a sickness to it, and it was steadily breaking through the youthful vigor he'd had in the Legion. He tried to imagine Avi handsome and young, but couldn't do it. "You hate me because I work for Qavrok. What other reason do you need?"

Avi turned to stare at him without jostling himself too much, looking marginally clearer-headed. "Not fair, though. Whatever's going on in your head that you think you have to obey him, you don't like it."

Gabriel bristled at the implication that he was just delusional, or he could think his way out of Qavrok's clutches if he wanted to. The contract was no figment of his imagination. "I don't pity you, degenerate. Do me the same courtesy."

Avi seemed to find that amusing. "Deal. I think you and I could be friends."

"We aren't friends," Gabriel hissed, suddenly unreasonably upset. "If we call each other friend, I will not stop obeying Qavrok, and you will continue to attack me when I do."

"I wouldn-"

"No. You must. You don't hit and kick because you wish to escape. You do it because it is your survival." He thought of his mother. Her last desperate push against the enormity of the Legion. The words were only speculation, but he spoke with as much certainty as he felt at the time. "If you give in, you let this life take you. You will die. You will have killed yourself. Yourselves," he added, thinking of the others. "Keep your friendship to yourself."

Avi digested this uncertainly. "...maybe. What about Butterfly?"

"She..." She was different. Somehow. There was a power in her weakness. "She seems to hold up well enough."

"You're very wise," said Avi. "Or crazy. Either way, I like you. Even if we can't be friends."

Gabriel glanced back at the fire. "We will see how you feel about me once this poultice is applied."

Avi grimaced. "Lovely."


Fiends ate like wild dogs, pouncing on whatever food was foraged that day and gorging until full, then passing out in a heap. Because of this, they only served one meal a day, and the four prisoners were left with the scraps.

Gabriel tried to feed them from his own rations, but his situation wasn't extremely stable either, and the contract forbade him from changing his physical condition — meaning nothing that would constitute starving himself. So he got creative to supplement their diets.

Mostly, that meant scraping sodden chunks of cave fungus from the basement. The prisoners were skeptical at first, until he calmly explained that it was practically a staple crop in the Legion and that he'd force-feed them like dogs if he needed to. (Violet had leaned more toward the dog option, but the others promised they'd get her to eat.)

Despite its appearance (and texture, and, honestly, taste), cave fungus did wonders for one's health, especially if one were skin-and-bones with chronic rad poisoning. Gabriel was pleased when he noticed that his charges had shed their sickly pallor and stopped vomiting what little they did eat.

He went to lengths he was less proud of. He stole scraps off the kitchen floor. He traded combat lessons for more sustenance, knowing full well that innocent people would suffer from the Fiends' knowledge. He boiled anything not-quite-edible into water, in the vague hope that some energy would be extracted that way (it worked with bones and some plants; not so much with cardboard or cigarettes). He lost respect for himself, but he enjoyed witnessing the strength come back to them. Butterfly had a comfortable heft when he lifted her up. Avi's prematurely graying hair filled in more thickly. Xan had more energy, and he heard her laughing more than once. But... it did weird things to Violet.

Gabriel unbolted the familiar closet door on this particular morning, only to be hit with a much harsher stench than usual. Most days, he opened the door to three years' accumulated human filth. Today, it smelled like... death. Like rotten meat.

"Thanks for the fresh air," said Xan, poking her head out.

"Has someone died?" Gabriel asked frantically.

"Come see," she smirked.

All four prisoners were intact and awake, thankfully. Violet was looking truly feral, spreading her limbs out over a whole wall and baring her teeth. Butterfly inched her way into the relatively clean hallway, seeking relief, and Gabriel toed her back into the doorway with an apologetic frown.

"Back off, rats! Back up!" Violet hissed at them.

"Show him what you did, Vi," Xan said with her hand over her nose. "Let's hear your latest genius plan."

"Don't harass her," Avi chided.

Violet, with fire in her red eyes, peeled back a wall panel. In the dark recesses of the closet-within-a-closet were... bones. Some with meat clinging on, others gnawed to the marrow. Violet snarled at Gabriel's bemused reaction. "Gabey, no. I buried my bones — mYbones mine — here. Safe. No sharing!"

When the Fiends brought back a molerat or dog for supper, usually all that was left for the prisoners was a tattered skeleton to pick at. Apparently, now that they were no longer on the brink of starvation, Violet had started hoarding beneath the others' notice. Her stash had gone putrid fairly quickly.

Gabriel abandoned his typical self-imposed morning duties — to refill water bottles, empty the waste bucket, and assess the captives' latest ailments — to wake Qavrok and request to temporarily alter his standing orders again. Qavrok rolled back to sleep with a rude gesture and a "Do what you gotta and don't bother me."

Gabriel could live with that.

Violet was still angrily defending her hoard when Gabriel returned. She was squatting in front of it, trying to hide it from view with her body. Spit flew from her mouth, discolored from the permanent chemical burns in her throat. Gabriel stared, uncertain how to continue.

"I'll cut you all up. I'll make a soup and give it to my puppies." Violet laughed. "Gabey, you need to run away or you'll get it."

"Don't hurt her. Please," said Avi. "She just gets like this sometimes. We can calm her down if you give us time." Gabriel was mildly offended; he couldn't think of a time he'd voluntarily harmed any of them, and he'd thought that he and Avi had come to some sort of understanding a few months ago. Still, Gabriel was a thug, and didn't feel entitled to be treated any other way than as a thug.

He crouched to Violet's level. "Would you like to do something much more fun than burying bones?"

Violet eyed him carefully. "Ya mean checkers? I can play checkers better than you, I bet. We just need some twigs and little rocks, and a pencil to mark our pieces, unless you just wanna remember which ones are yours and—"

"I can't play checkers," Gabriel cut her off. "I'll find those things for you, but not today."

"Nah, it's too dark in here to play. Sometimes Qavrok will play with me."

"That's nice. But now you must come with me, the four of you." To avoid any further interruption, he turned and left. The others trailed cautiously behind.


Avi found a shoestring somewhere, and the girls were amusing themselves trying to find ways to tie up his hair. They were going too slow for Gabriel's liking; they had no shoes, and in a few hours the sun would bake the sand and burn the soles of their feet on the way back.

Butterfly, sensing too many cooks in this particular kitchen, trotted to Gabriel's side. "You always look so cool," she smiled. He shot her a smile that quickly disappeared behind worry lines. "So where are we going?"

He grunted. "About two miles away is a lake. The four of you need to wash yourselves, and I need to clean your cell."

"That sounds amazing. Literally the only thing better would be if you had soap."

From a pocket, he pulled out a mostly-untouched bar of soap that he'd found on a raid. She squealed and grabbed his arm joyfully, and it was enough to make him chuckle.

They'd gotten a little ahead of the others, so Butterfly leaned comfortably on him while they caught up.

"Looking snazzy, Avi," she called. Avi preened sardonically.

"Does your ponytail make you feel like a man?" Xan teased him with a grin.

"I'm still working on feeling like a human," he grumbled.

"Why don't you cry about it, eunuch?" Xan rolled her eyes.

Avi stuck out his tongue, but went quiet after that. Violet drew shapes on his back with a finger, bone stash forgotten.

Two minutes later, Butterfly's legs gave way. She got up, laughing, but it made Gabriel anxious. She rode on his back the rest of the way, and he stopped worrying.

As promised, goofing off in a lake was a lot more fun than sitting in captivity arguing over a pile of rotten rodent remains, and the prospect of being clean afterwards was even more alluring. While he had the chance, Gabriel wanted to wash the broom closet cell, and surreptitiously dispose of the bone stash while Violet was distracted, but he'd have to wait until they got back.

Xan hopped onto the rock where he was sitting. "Hey there, hero. Enjoying your brooding?"

"Someone has to."

She barked a laugh. "I think you've got that covered. How'd you get Qavrok to let us out?"

"Luck, and knowing when to ask. Occasionally he will give me vague orders to get me out of his hair. I take advantage of that."

"Hmph. Any of us try that and we'd get our noses broken."

Gabriel smiled ruefully. "He cannot hurt me. Doing so would invalidate our contract, and I would be free to rid the world of his... filth."

"Excellent," Xan hissed. "Then what happens to you?"

"I return to the Legion," he murmured, trancelike. "To my master."

"Yikes. I was about to ask you to take us with you, but not so much now." She sighed, wringing water out of her matted brown hair. "I don't even feel bad for wanting him dead. I'm just tired of being so scared all the time."

"He chems himself nearly to death every night. Someday."

She agreed softly. "Someday."


Time crawled on. Qavrok's games got sicker, and the five of them got more sick. Gabriel gave the prisoners all the help he could, and they gave him their resilience, shared their tears. He grew resilient, too, but he never cried — not since he was fifteen.

He had worked for Qavrok for almost a year when things took a turn for the worse.

On Monday, the fiend asked for Violet. On Tuesday, it was Butterfly in the morning, and Avi in the evening. Wednesday, he wanted Butterfly... then Butterfly again.

It was Thursday. He'd asked for Butterfly. None of them had ever been called for so many times in such a short span, and Qavrok didn't appear to be in a merciful mood. Gabriel couldn't help the horrible sense of dread it gave him.

She was asleep when he got to the cell, head lolling against her corner. The others looked up in alarm when Gabriel opened the door, but he couldn't meet their eyes. Their presence felt like an accusation. He scooped her up, and she sighed semi-consciously.

"Wait," Avi muttered fruitlessly. "Don't take her. It's okay. You — you don't have to do what he says anymore."

Gabriel suppressed a growl. "I do."

"Find a loophole or something. Or even just wait a few hours. He didn't tell you when you had to be back, did he?" Avi's desperation sent cold tendrils of fear through Gabriel's chest. The girl in his arms fluttered her eyelids and said nothing.

"There are no loopholes, and I cannot wait. Do you think the man who did this to me was an idiot?" Gabriel felt like attacking him, and might have if not for the soft weight resting against his front.

"Just—"

"Give it a rest, Avi," Xan drawled, head against the wall. "Just shut up."

Sensing that his time was up, Gabriel retreated, shaking Butterfly's leg out of Violet's clutches.

He felt Butterfly wake up, realize vaguely what was going on, and curl tighter into herself. "I don't wanna go," she whimpered.

"It will go quickly. I promise." He knew no such thing, but she seemed to accept it.

She breathed heavily. "I don't think I've ever felt this sick."

"Mm. I will ask Qavrok to keep that in mind."

"Don't. Please. That never goes well." She was right. He had just wanted to do something. "Will you put me down?"

Her legs splayed weakly when he set her to her feet, and he supported the weight she couldn't. She leaned forward and put her arms around his neck to steady herself, ending up in an awkward hug.

"Ask you a favor?" she began, eyes locked on his face.

"Yes?"

"Call me Audrey. I never liked Butterfly."

"As you wish."

Her ragged breathing kept time against their heartbeats for a few moments, and he was about to tell her it was time to go, when suddenly her hands were tilting his face toward hers, and he was closing his eyes—

It was Gabriel's first kiss, and probably Audrey's too. (Qavrok didn't count). She was weak, and he was inexperienced, and neither of them had bathed recently; under different circumstances, it would have felt silly. But both knew what they hadn't said. It was now or never.

It was thank you and goodbyeand I'm sorry and remember me, all in a matter of seconds. They wrapped up everything they'd ever wanted for each other and gave them as parting gifts, memories with no source. In the safety of arms, and the freedom of this last great choice, they were whole.

Audrey broke apart and Gabriel straightened, her arms still hanging onto his neck. She took a deep, shuddering breath.

"I just thought you should know."

There was nothing for Gabriel to say that he hadn't just told her, so he held her until the contract pushed them onwards.


When Gabriel retrieved Audrey from the throneroom, she had already gone into shock. They hadn't even reached the broom closet cell when she died.

It was the stimpak that killed her. Her body just wasn't strong enough to handle such a rapid cycle of healing. It was grisly, but peaceful, as far as deaths go. When he felt her breathe her last, Gabriel set her body down and wept.


The next day, Qavrok let them have a small funeral, setting her adrift in the underwater river that flowed through the ruptured basement. Violet sang the song about the dog, her version of a dirge. Avi gave a brief, tearful eulogy. It was less than she deserved, but they always made do with what they had.

Life went on, gruesome and predictable. Any benefit from having one fewer mouth to feed was soon extinguished, when Eileen got on Qavrok's bad side for some reason or another, and ended up taking Audrey's place in the broom closet cell. None of them ever grew to get along with her, but at least Gabriel took away all her knives.

Mercifully, Qavrok had a lot less time for his prisoners, because he was far too busy with his latest exploit: Conquering a pre-war meat packaging facility from its robotic guardians. All the Fiends he threw at it came back empty-handed, or, more often, didn't come back at all. He never sent Gabriel. Maybe he considered his employee too valuable of an asset, maybe he just forgot he existed. Or maybe he'd caught wind of those Legion patrols sniffing around the area, and wisely decided not to risk returning him to sender.

Qavrok looked into hiring mercenary bands, and met with potential agents almost daily. Few were ever satisfied with the payment he was offering, and of those, none succeeded at liberating the factory.

The Jackalopes fell into the first category, and left in disgust. Then, the next day, they returned to say they'd accepted. This struck Gabriel as highly suspicious, but the contract only required that he protect his employer from active threats. He felt an unexplainable twinge of sympathy for the man, but crushed it down with a completely explainable hatred.

Days later, the Jackalopes returned, with a half dozen robot heads as proof of bounty. Qavrok set Gabriel on guard as he tried to cheat them on the payment he'd promised.

"Sir, we agreed on a price. All my mercs were there. Your bodyguard was there. You can ask him." The leader of the company waved her fingers at Gabriel, who dutifully ignored her.

"300 is fair," Qavrok slurred over his beer. "My Fiends did most of the work for you."

"300 caps wont even cover travel costs from Nevada. It certainly won't get us back. Our deal was 750."

Qavrok leaned in and huffed his foul breath. "It was 300 and that's generous." He grabbed the leader's wrist suddenly. "Do you know what happens to pretty girls who defy me, Meg?"

Meg didn't miss a beat. "You think I'm pretty?"

Her tone wasn't genuine, but Qavrok was not an expert at body language, so he patted the side of her head magnanimously. "We should talk about it." He glanced at the four mercs with her. "Alone."

"I think that's a great idea." She smiled, catlike. "Would you send your man to fetch us some more wine?"

Gabriel rarely spoke to visitors, but he blurted, "My contract does not bind me to perform petty errands."

Qavrok's eyes went savage, and he spoke through clenched teeth, "You're not gonna do it because of the contract. You're gonna do it because you want to. Desperately."

It was a threat, and Gabriel heard it loud and clear. As much as he hated being an errand boy, it wasn't worth Xan losing another toe, or whatever harm Qavrok would come up with.

He grabbed as much alcohol as he could find, because blackout-drunk Qavrok was a lot more pleasant than very-drunk Qavrok, and there was always the slim chance he would choke on his own vomit.

When he returned to the throneroom, Meg was batting eyes at Qavrok from across a coffee table. Both sat on the floor; furniture was a luxury in Tailless Calf Junction. Gabriel was wholly impressed with her ability keep up the act before such a loathsome person, but he supposed the alcohol helped.

They haggled and flirted and drank. Qavrok told Gabriel to keep his back to them, an order he had no problem obeying. They spoke in voices too low for him to understand. Her words were muffled by Qavrok's ear. Things went silent for several moments.

Then every muscle in Gabriel's body tensed as one when a shot rang out behind him. He spun around to see Qavrok, fallen and bleeding tremendously from the point-blank shotgun blast into his gut. Gabriel turned on Meg, who held up a wrinkled sheet of parchment paper like a ward.

The contract. Signed Qavrok on the bottom-left, Meg Taggart on the right.

Gabriel felt the threads of his will sever, and tie themselves to a new employer. On the floor, Qavrok was unconscious, and probably dead.

Meg's feline smile broadened. "Hiya, handsome." Satisfied that he wasn't hostile, she pocketed the contract. "What do you say you show me where the old cadaver kept all of his caps?"

Gabriel blinked. "As you command."


"David Martin. You know him?"

"Only in passing," Joshua mused. "I regret that I didn't spend much time socializing while my tribe was still whole."

"How about you, Daniel?" Sage turned to him.

Daniel looked up at the ceiling, remembering. "I spent some time with him when I was in training as a healer. He... had a lot of medical issues."

"'Had.' Past tense?" Sage felt dread encroaching on her good mood.

The missionary scratched his beard, looking uncomfortable. "We've never done a headcount, but to my knowledge, he hasn't been seen since we lost New Canaan. He's not at Dead Horse Point or Syracuse, or with either of the groups in Colorado."

Joshua looked severe, which wasn't unusual. But this was more than just casual stress — he was losing his chance at finding Gabriel, right before his eyes.

"So, no David," she muttered. "Is there anyone he might have told? Someone I can talk to?"

"Well..." Daniel began, "He lived across the street from Naomi, my sister. It's possible that Hope could tell us who he spent time with." This conversation was starting to grate on his nerves, Sage could tell. He got a little touchy whenever New Canaan came up in conversation, and talking about his dead relatives really wasn't helping.

They migrated down to the casino floor to find Hope and Molly playing fetch with Rex. ED-E was taking on Rex's guide dog duties, and the girls were giving him some much-needed exercise.

"Hope," Joshua called. "Sit with us for a moment."

"What is it?" she asked impatiently, still holding Rex's Dinky toy. Rex pranced at her feet, trying to gain back her attention and the dino.

"Did you know David Martin?"

Hope averted her gaze uncomfortably and tossed Rex his toy. Rex spun around and gave it to Molly, who moved the game outside, avoiding the unhappy conversation.

Hope hopped onto a barstool, and they gathered around to hear her. "Yeah. I knew David. We were friends."

"We're looking for information about his time with the Fiends," said Sage. "Do you know anyone he might have talked to about it?"

"No one alive." Her discomfort was growing. Daniel moved to intervene, but Joshua interrupted.

"Is there anything you can tell us that we might be able to use? This is important, Hope."

"Don't pressure her," Daniel snapped. "She doesn't want to talk about it."

"I need to know," Joshua said, his voice deep and stark.

Sage was uncomfortable with being caught in the middle of a family affair, though all she did anymore was involve herself in messy personal situations. Hope was a damaged little girl, but she knew when something was more important than her feelings, so she nodded weakly.

"I... That night. When everything happened." She took a breath and continued. "He got hurt. And then he got taken... by the White Legs." Sage heard the way her voice wrapped around the name, and understood, for a moment, why Joshua had wanted to destroy them all.

"Why would they do that?" Daniel asked, brows set.

"I don't know," she half-whimpered. "I wanted to tell you. But I was scared. I didn't want anybody else to die!" Her voice rose in a sob and she fell into the nearest arms, which were Joshua's. He cradled her in death-stained hands, and her side of the conversation was effectively over.

"Well... this is good. There's still a chance," Sage said at last. "I could use some coordinates if you have them."

"You don't know what you're saying." Daniel glanced anxiously at Hope. "Even if there's a chance, it's too dangerous."

"She has to," Joshua said lowly. "If David and Gabriel are still alive, they have no other chance at rescue."

"I know that. But it's not worth any more death. Sage is needed elsewhere, Joshua. Let go before your path leads to destruction."

"While I appreciate your concern, Daniel," Sage half-smirked, "it's really neither of your decisions what I do. Besides," She stood up and pushed in her bar stool. "I know a guy."


For all his poetic anger, Ulysses had a frumentarius's curiosity. He had the bearing, as well, but he couldn't hide his fascination with the vertibird. Not from Sage. His awe was strange, for a man who'd seen nuclear fire fill the sky.

"Kept my distance from this place," he mused from behind the cockpit, watching the barren landscape below with interest. "Grew weary of salt and hunger."

Sage knew the real reason he hated the White Legs, but she didn't see a reason to bring it up. And, though he was a hard man to read, she figured he must feel some sort of guilt over the whole endeavor. Or maybe he still missed the trees for the forest.

"Beasts of men... driven out, word says. By shame. By rot. By living in the shade of a tattered flag that means nothing to them."

"They were driven out by the 80's, Ulysses," Sage corrected him calmly.

"That too," he growled.

"But you know where they are," said Arcade, who was used to Ulysses's pontifications by this point in the journey.

"Do. Did. Sands always changing. We'll know when we know, Follower."

"Excellent. Love that. You should join a thespian troupe," Arcade rolled his eyes.

"Hm."

"You'll be able to deal with Salty once we find him?" Sage queried.

"Might. Or your words alone will crush his will. Either way. No future for a broken beast on a broken road. Nothing to defend, in this place."

"I dunno," Sage considered it. "He seems like the proud type. And this is assuming David is even alive."

Ulysses made a sound, deep in his throat, that might have resembled a laugh. "He had a high opinion of himself, once. Now, something less remains. You would understand if you'd stood at the barrel of Joshua Graham's rage."

"Uh, yeah," she said bluntly. "For the record, Joshua doesn't know you're here. I don't think he'd react too well if he did."

"He led by example. Always followed orders. Always," Ulysses's brow turned downward for half a second, as if he was thinking. "No fault for it, you could say. Until it hits, later. Until you find yourself on the lonesome road, carrying a flag on your back, because you remain. He'll burn up in his own fires before they reach me."

Sage was lost, but that wasn't too unusual. "I don't think he wants to be that way anymore. I hope that if we find Gabriel, it will help."

"Could be. Anger is his nature. Death followed him, long before it reached you or me. But... if the Burned Man dies, maybe Joshua Graham will live. Maybe."


The White Legs were holed up in the first place they checked: a deep crack in the earth that opened to a sheltered space. There were no natural resources; White Legs had never lived off the earth. Not all of them were staying here, but Salt-Upon-Wounds was.

The team had been aiming for theatric, and they hit their mark. Seeing a roaring metal beast descend from the sky was one thing. Ulysses, their idol, exiting with Old Glory in hand was another. Courier Six, wearing a borrowed SLCPD vest, Salt-Upon-Wounds's power fist on one hand and A Light Shining In Darkness in another, was something else entirely. Where language fails, Ulysses had said, symbols speak.

Some of the White Legs made threats and postures, some took a positive interest, and the rest merely looked on cautiously. They weren't quite the savages Sage had met in Zion Valley. Some still wore their hair in disordered knots. A few children stood clinging to parents' legs, but most of their non-combatants were hidden away in other places. In a weird way, they reminded her of the New Canaanites. (Around and around and around.)

"Salt-Upon-Wounds," Ulysses called, and the man himself rose, recognizing his English name. Ulysses had predicted correctly — the war chief was a shadow of his former self. Maskless, scraggly beard, hunched with the people rather than in a place of honor.

"Hainji," he grunted in confusion towards Ulysses. "You here... why?" His eyes travelled to Sage, his enemy and rescuer. Arcade was ignored despite the hulking form of his power armor.

"Where do you keep your prisoners?" Sage asked firmly. She brandished the gun, pointing somewhere at the ground. She was right-handed, and the kick from the .45 would be too much for her were she to shoot it, but she wanted the chief to see the weapons and recognize them.

He saw, and he listened. He looked to Ulysses for help and got nothing. Her coworker had come prepared, but Sage could see his mind reeling at the ghosts mimicked around him. She turned Salt-Upon-Wounds's attention back to herself. "I'm here on behalf of the Burned Man. Take me to your prisoners."

Invoking the name got the desired effect. "Kunaman... hm." He licked his lips anxiously and called to a subordinate. "Soon. Wait, outman. Soon."

"He caved quicker than expected," Arcade muttered. "Maybe the theatrics weren't as necessary as we thought."

"He agreed to send for a translator," Ulysses growled. "The rest depends on us."

"I thought you spoke their language," said Sage.

"Fragments. Every tongue still alive in the West... some dead... lives in me. No sense using it. Negotiation goes smoother when they're scrambling for the right words."

"Sounds like a Vulpes tactic."

"Hm."

The woman they brought to the visitors wore no war paint or armor. No salt covered her skin. Her hair was unknotted. Her skin was darker than the tribe's. She spoke clear English when she said, "Hello, visitors. What is it that you need?"

"Are you from New Canaan?" Sage guessed.

"I was," she said, with something like a smile. "My name is Letty. I'm a White Leg by marriage." That wasn't what Sage had expected.

"So the White Legs did take prisoners."

Letty studied them, analyzing her motive in asking. Sage traveled with a man in power armor and an ambassador from the Legion, but she claimed to be here on the Burned Man's behalf. Suspicion was a fair response. "They... did. They took five of us from the city, and more from the surrounding countryside."

"What makes you so anxious about telling us?"

Letty seemed to calm down a bit. "If the Legion finds out that we were left alive, the tribe is in danger. If whoever's left from New Canaan finds out there are captives here, the tribe could be in danger. I just... don't want anyone to get hurt. We're really not treated badly... though I expect the others would be killed if word got out..."

"We're not with the Legion. We just want to bring them home. Can you help us with that?" Sage remembered the gun that was still in her hand, and holstered it, hoping to put her more at ease. She heard the hydraulic hiss of Arcade removing his helmet behind her.

"There's no home to go back to," Letty said uncomfortably. "And... the White Legs won't survive without us. In their culture, it's shameful to feed the earth — farming. It's 'weak.' They hunt sometimes, but mostly they feed themselves by raiding. I don't like that they have to use slavery to get around that, but it saves a lot of lives."

Sage, though a little disgusted by her pragmatism, felt like she finally understood. She looked back at Ulysses, who had his eyebrows quirked curiously.

"Sympathy for dogs," he murmured thoughtfully. "A solution with a short half-life. No better to be unprepared for peace, than to be unprepared for war."

Sage was equally unimpressed with Ulysses's idealism. "Get too caught up in theory, and nukes start looking like a viable solution. It is what it is, and we're going to do what we can to help. Arcade...?"

Catching her drift, Arcade looked reluctant. "The Followers might help, if we told them what was at stake. But the resources it would require... travel, hiring security, keeping everyone fed... It wouldn't be feasible until refugees stop arriving from the Legion."

"Well, I could increase New Vegas's monthly donations. The New Canaanites could help, too, but it would be macabre to ask."

"I don't think the Followers work with New Canaan anymore, for fairly obvious reasons."

"History," Ulysses agreed.

Letty was nodding along, slowly. "I'm glad you want to help. But the White Legs have to be willing to learn before anyone volunteers to teach them. Maybe now that you're here..." She took a step toward Ulysses, hope in her eyes. "Maybe you could convince them? My husband and I would be by your side."

Ulysses's face didn't change. He looked almost normal without his respirator. "Bold woman. Chose a flag for yourself. But what's more, you want to choose what it says. Some meaning in that, maybe. Cowardice... or conviction. I will not give them their purpose. I carry my own. But you... you will do what I cannot, and call me the means to your ending."

Sage smiled awkwardly. "He means yes."


"David." Sage's voice was sharp but low; five people slept on the other side of the chainlink fence, and she only wanted to wake up one of them.

David Martin raised his head from the pile of skins and straw he used for a mattress. He was a sickly-looking man somewhere in his forties, with sunburnt skin and hair that needed cutting. Also within the fence were three women, one sleeping with a little boy curled under her arm. Based on his age, Sage guessed that he'd been born not long after his mother was taken into captivity. The slaves showed no signs of abuse, and while they were thin, they looked no worse-off than most White Legs.

"David. Hi."

He blinked in confusion, brain still processing that he had a visitor, and one who spoke English, at that. "...Hi."

"Feel like getting out of here?"

That got his attention. "Depends... where I'd be ending up."

"The New Vegas Strip, to start out with. After that, you're free to go."

He sat up, crossing his legs. "Freedom sounds nice. But it also sounds like you want something from me."

"Well, that's very astute."

He gave a laden sigh. "Something to do with the Fiends?"

"Very astute."

"Not really. I helped form the biggest raider group within a thousand miles. Don't see why else you'd want to get to me, enough to brave the White Legs."

"Wait, you founded the Fiends?"

"Yeah. I was second-in-command for about seven years before my, uh... fall from grace." He realized his voice had risen in volume, and checked to make sure his cellmates still slept. Only the baby had woken up; he stared with uncomprehending eyes, gnawing on a fist. David scooped him up and rubbed his back rhythmically, trying to settle him down.

Sage brought her voice from a murmur to a whisper. "Maybe we should catch up later. Right now, all I need to know is what happened to Gabriel."

David's hand paused, and the toddler reached up and planted a foot into his chest, wanting to play. "Gabriel? You don't look like you're with the Legion."

"Sort of. I'm here on behalf of Joshua Graham, and Alexandra Oleastro. And, I guess, Hope Ripley."

"Little Hope's still alive?" He brightened immediately, beyond pleased by the news.

"Yep. She saw the White Legs take you. Things were such a mess afterwards that she didn't tell anyone until recently — don't blame her, though, something like that can really do things to a kid."

"You've got that right... speaking of which." He paused and gently deposited the sleeping child next to his mother. "So Joshua is really the one who messed Gabriel up?"

"Messed him up?"

"He... wasn't a normal teenager. Even beyond the brainwashing."

"I don't follow."

"Just..." Avi placed his hand on the chainlink. "He saved my life. Can I trust you if you promise that he won't get hurt?"

Sage touched the other side of the chainlink, their hands like a mirror. "If it's at all up to me, I'll make sure he's okay."

"Okay. Then I can give you a name."

"Shoot."

David sighed again, quicker and lighter. "Her name was Meg Taggart."


2262 -
Protective Custody
2263-2265 -
2266 -
January - Distance, No More
October - Power and Beauty
2267 -
2268 -
Ensnared
The Way Forward begins
2269 -
2270 -
The Way Forward ends
2271-2276 -
2277 -
January - Sage destroys the Divide
February - First Battle of Hoover Dam
July - The Mummy Returns
August 17 - Aniss leaves Vault 101
The Prodigal Son
September - To Set the Record Straight
November - The Burned Man Walks
2278 -
April - James dies (Purity War begins)
June - Guide Her Through the Night
Bitter Springs
September - Project Purity activates
November - Human Capital
2279 -
Adams Air Force Base (Purity War ends)
2280 -
May - Dogmeat's Vacation
August - Boones are married
2281 -
New Canaan is destroyed
October 11 - Sage is shot in the head
October 19 - Sage wakes up
2282 -
ED-E, My Bud
2283 -
January - Second Battle of Hoover Dam
February - To Have and To Hold
April - Awake, O Sleeper
May - Worst-Case Scenario
July - Mercury's Messenger
August - Safe Haven
September - Power and Beauty (pt. 2)/East and West begins
October - East and West ends