With all the convicts gone, Makoto put her pistol into her blouse pocket – it was visibly sticking out, but it left both her hands free – and inspected the location she ended up in. There was an unmaintained T junction in the middle of that part of the settlement, surrounded by three buildings.

There were also corpses of some townies here and there – she tried to ignore them, and not just because they were probably killed by the convicts she had allowed to leave.

The biggest building was the Bison Steve Hotel. It was a geometrically simple, if spacious, building, a few stories tall, stained mustard-yellow by sunlight and time. A damaged rollercoaster was wrapped around it, and in front of it a massive sign depicting a titular animal was slowly spinning around. If the worn-down signs on the front were to be believed, at some point the hotel doubled as a casino, and now reportedly housed a bunch of convicts and a hostage.

Opposite it was a slightly less spacious building, labeled 'Vikki and Vance'. It was a brick building (as evidenced by the bricks peeking from underneath the dirty-gray render), three stories tall, encircled with some copper-coloured reliefs and decorations on the edge of the roof. A tower in the corner of the building proclaimed it to be another casino. The main entrance was boarded up from the outside, with seemingly a single door available as a point of entrance. No window was left unbroken.

Last but not least, there was a tiny brick building with an EXPRESS MOJAVE neon sign on top of it – or was it MOJAVE EXPRESS? The sign encircled the edge of the roof and you could read it in either order depending on the angle. It was the only surviving bit of a larger building, two stories tall, comparatively unremarkable.

One of the roads of the junction led back to the suburb Makoto had materialized in. The other looped around Vikki and Vance, past some sheet metal shacks with nobody inside (well, nobody answering to her knocking) and a closed gas station, rejoining with the final road. It, in turn, led out of the settlement towards a bridge (or what remained of it) going to what must've been the other side of the town a few centuries prior. There were some fortifications on the other side, adorned with a flag of a polity she didn't recognize. It was white with a red stripe at the bottom and a red star in the top left corner. It depicted a two-headed animal she couldn't recognize from so far away, and she wasn't going to come any closer; the bridge was mined and the lookout with a rifle was staring at her intently.

Makoto briefly considered waiting for the convicts to disappear in the distance and going towards the outpost as recommended, but that would mean leaving the innocents of Primm behind, and that just didn't seem right to her. She did a few circles around Bison Steve, looking for a side entrance she could use to sneak in and maybe try to free the captive, but ultimately gave up on the idea – she was alone, on an unfamiliar ground, in less civilized times, and the convicts probably wouldn't hesitate to use whatever firearms they had.

Lacking better ideas, she decided to check in on the locals holed up in Vikki and Vance. She approached the one available entrance and tried to open the door. To her shock, it wasn't locked, but as she pushed it a bit ajar, she heard the sound of assorted guns getting cocked or chambering a round.

"I am not an enemy," she announced.

"Do not make any sudden moves then," a man on the other end proclaimed with a drawl. "Come in, slowly."

Makoto braced herself and entered the building, closing the door behind herself.

It resembled a casino alright, and not even the dirty wooden floor and the wallpaper peeling off the walls in many spots could change that. The antechamber with three dozen one-armed bandits – three per group, two groups per row, six rows total – led to a larger room, dimly lit up with some lights on the ceiling high above. In the middle of it was a car on display, with a bunch of bullet holes in the rear side door. Around it were a bunch more slot machines and a few blackjack and roulette tables. There was a small bar in the far right corner, and on the left-hand wall was what used to be a cashier's office. There were a few dozen residents cluttered in the building, all staring at the newcomer with guns at the ready – revolvers, lever-action rifles, break-action shotguns and at least one thing vaguely resembling a grease gun.

"You don't look like you're from around here," said one of the residents, an old black man in a long-sleeve shirt and denim overalls. "You got lost on the road to Vegas?"

"Not really, just… got lost in general." Makoto replied. In an attempt to get him to put the gun away, she outstretched her hand to shake. "I'm Makoto Niijima."

"I knew a guy named Makoto once." The old man moved the gun to his left and shook Makoto's hand. "Johnson Nash, local trader." He put it back in his right after releasing her hand. "Welcome to Primm. Things have gone to hell, I'm sorry to say."

"I'm aware," she replied. "There was a breakout at the local penitentiary facility, and some convicts have assaulted this settlement."

"I'd use less ten-dollar words to describe it, but yeah," Nash nodded. "They killed the sheriff and his wife, and kidnapped the deputy."

Makoto winced.

"We woulda paid the ransom if we had caps to spare," he continued. "But we don't, and we ended up retreating to this ol' casino. There's one entrance, so they can't come in without getting shot to bits, and they haven't figured out yet they have more bodies than we have bullets."

"I, uh, accidentally got some of them to leave town," she admitted. "The ones patrolling outside. They were frustrated with their leadership putting them in a disadvantageous spot."

"Good riddance," Nash grumbled, then paused to reevaluate the situation. "This might make scavenging for supplies a bit easier. Thank you, kid."

"Is there anything else I can do to help?"

Nash looked at the city slicker in front of him, wondering how she could possibly help him. "I'm sorry, I don't follow."

"It's not right, not just, that you have to hide because of some escaped convicts threatening your home," Makoto elaborated. "I-I can't do much on my own, but maybe there's some sort of authority I could inform about this to assist you."

"Huh." Nash thought about it for a moment. "The way I see it, Primm needs some sort of lawman to restore the peace. Even if the deputy wasn't currently kidnapped, he's as useful as a laser with no lens. You could try and approach the NCR troopers on the other side of the town, ask them why they're just sitting on their thumbs."

"When scavenging," one of the other residents spoke up, "I've heard the gangers complain about some 'goodie two-shoes' former sheriff that stayed in the prison. Maybe he could help us."

Even after the past nine months challenged her preconceptions about lawfulness, goodness, and relation between the two, Makoto didn't feel like approaching a penal facility overrun by convicts. "Let's call that 'plan B'." She pointed at the door behind her with her thumb. "If I go out there and try to approach the NCR forces… they won't shoot me on sight, will they?"

"They didn't pick off any scavengers as far as I can tell," Nash commented. "Don't give them an excuse and they shouldn't fire on you."

"Right," Makoto nodded. A stray thought bounced in Makoto's head – you don't know how this world works, you already had one brush with danger, stay out of it. It didn't last long – she wasn't the type of person to let the bad guys run around, and the current plan was the most reasonable way of dealing with the situation. "I will discuss the current situation with them, and request official aid if possible," she said, inching towards the door.

"'Preciate it," Nash said. "Best of luck to you, kid."

Makoto bowed her head in farewell and left.

Neil carefully entered the broadcast building, carrying a wooden box with assorted foodstuffs in it. "The expedition was a success," he announced to Raul and Futaba – the latter was too busy typing on one of the terminals to pay attention. "I have managed to acquire human-suitable food from the nearby quarry workers."

"Is 'acquire' a euphemism?" Raul asked.

"It is not," he said, setting the box on one of the less cluttered tables. "I treated the wounded leg of their pet mole rat and they parted with some food and clean water in return."

"Huh. I didn't know you had medical training."

"I read a book or two," Neil said. "And I patched up a fair share of second-generation super mutants that didn't know how to deal with their own wounds. By the way, the quarry workers are willing to part with more food if you repair their generator."

"Great idea," Raul replied. "I'm sure I can sneak past a bunch of ferocious deathclaws on the way there."

"I did that twice already," Neil countered. "And I'm a ten-feet-tall green humanoid."

"Yeah, so things that do spot you are intimidated enough to-"

"Yessss…"

The two turned to Futaba, who was sitting by one of the terminals with the back cover missing. For some reason, she was also pumping her fist.

"What did I miss?" Neil asked.

"Alright, so," she turned to them, "the operating system you have is a proprietary antique mess." She pointed at a small doodad connected to the back of the machine with a cable they were sure wasn't there before. "So, I bodged an adapter to connect my memory stick to one of the serial ports in this terminal, and booted to a stripped-down version of Linux I have on it. I've just managed to tweak the command line interface to adjust to the monochromatic display and create a separate swap partition to circumvent the pathetic sixty-four kilos of RAM this museum piece has."

After a moment of silence, Raul finally said: "You switched to that other language mid-sentence, didn't you?"

"If I did, you wouldn't notice," she retorted. "Computer vocabulary is eighty-percent English loanwords."

"How will that help you achieve your goal?" Neil asked.

"It now runs an operating system I am familiar with, which would make it easier to programmatically control all the hardware. I also have the space for software controlling it that won't require me to desperately optimize things." She gestured at the computer. "Seriously, sixty-four kilobytes of random access memory?!"

"Sometimes, the future is disappointing," Raul deadpanned. "So now's the part where we jury-rig a receiver, I assume."

"Yep," Futaba nodded. "Do you wanna do it for me?"

At that point Raul was willing to play along just to see where this situation would go. "Sure, why not."

"Nice. Can you slap a band-pass filter on it while you're at it?" she asked. "I could try doing that with software, but if you'll do it with hardware, I can focus on other things."

"Band-pass is the one that cuts off frequencies above and below something, right?"

"Yep," Futaba nodded. "I wanna process incoming waves between seven-oh-three and seven-forty-eight megahertz. I think everyone's cell phones should be able to tune in to that."

"Sure, that's doable." Raul started inspecting the machinery on racks behind him.

Neil just watched the two work – he was intelligent, and not just by Super Mutant standards, but he had no knack for electronics. Most buttons, wires, and keyboards weren't made for folks of his size. "If I can ask," he said, "when will this produce any tangible results?"

"If we pass all the skill checks, before the end of the day," Futaba replied.

Haru and the three women she had encountered trekked through the hills, avoiding the roads leading back to Fiend territory. It was almost safe – the biggest threat they encountered on that path was a bunch of large, bipedal lizards in a small valley. They fell quickly to a few clean shots from Lilith's pump-action shotgun.

"What are those?" Haru asked.

"Fire geckos," she replied, putting fresh shells in her gun, two at a time. "If you shoot them before they get close, they're easy pickin's."

"And if you don't?"

"They breathe fire at you," she replied, chambering a round and putting in one last shell. "It won't kill you if you fight back, but it hurts as fuck."

From there, they marched past some decrepit factory or plant of some sort, then through a bridge over a dilapidated highway. On the other side, they turned past an office building – an adorably small one by Haru's standards, with a what used to be a car some centuries ago crashed near the entrance – and walked down the ruined road through what might've been an industrial district a few centuries ago, but now was a bunch of ruins nobody gave a crap about. The road then led between piles of rubble and some kind of military base – at least, Haru assumed it was a military base, because it had walls several meters tall, they were topped with barbed wire, and uniformed soldiers on designated vantage points.

"What's this place?" she asked, pointing at the complex.

"Camp McCarran," Lilith replied. "An NCR army base."

"And, uh, what's NCR?"

"Jeez, you're really sheltered, silver spoon," Phoenix muttered.

"New California Republic," Lilith elaborated. "The fucks rolled up a few years back and proclaimed this is their turf now."

Haru noticed her guides visibly scowling at the mention of the Republic. "You… you don't like them, do you?"

She got three sighs in response. "It's complicated," Lilith growled. "I can live with the individuals, but we've got a bone to pick with the country as a whole."

"It ain't a story we wanna tell you," Phoenix added. "We don't ask what you did to survive, so don't ask us what we do."

At the end of the road there was a large elevated sign, standing in front of a large barricade made out of billboards, separating some high-rise buildings from the rest of the world. As the group approached it, Haru realized she had seen that sign before – not in person, and not in its current form, but on photos and in TV shows. It was shaped like a diamond, with a few circles above it. The letters in circles read "WELCOME", and the diamond below it continued "TO FABULOUS NEW VEGAS". The "E" in "new" was an upside-down 3 for some reason, and the sign looked like it was about to fall apart – but then again, so did most things in this world, Haru noticed.

"There's a New Vegas?" she asked.

"Apparently so," April replied. "We've never seen the old one though."

"There was one," Haru said, "and it was called Las Vegas and Father went to it for vacation once and complained about losing a lot of money when he came back."

"Sounds like nothing's changed since then," Phoenix smirked to herself.

"And when was that?" Lilith asked.

"I think… I think 2010? I was a kid back then."

After a pregnant pause, Phoenix muttered. "…jeez, she's still shaken."

Haru noted their shock but didn't question the assumption.

The four turned a corner and found themselves staring at three men, no older than early twenties – similar age to their female counterparts. One of them was on the shorter side, wearing jeans and a black leather jacket, had his hair slicked back, and there was some kind of hand-cannon hanging from the holster on his hip. By him stood a mountain of a man, two meters tall at least – though the thick unibrow and the resting dopey grin removed most of his intimidation factor. He had short red hair and was wearing baggy trousers and a striped red-and-white shirt. The last guy was a bit shorter and much thinner, with a distinct–looking dark-gray indistinct hat of some kind and a lab coat with encircled crosses on the shoulders. He seemed disgusted with something.

"Took you long enough," the guy in the jacket said in lieu of a greeting. "Who's the new chick?"

Haru bowed slightly. "I'm Haru Okumura," she said, finally remembering the given name comes first in English. "I'm pleased to meet you." She turned to Lilith. "Is one of them that 2D person you mentioned?"

"Yep," she replied. "The striped guy is Dee, the lab coat guy's 2D, the leather jacket guy is Eddie."

Dee raised half a unibrow. "Why are you covered in blood?"

"I…" Haru said, "I got lost and stumbled upon… Fiends, you called them? I was… attacked and grabbed someone's axe and…" She took a deep breath. "And the rest is a blur. Next thing I remember is running away with this thing in my hands, covered in blood."

"Wow," Eddie muttered, impressed and kind of intimidated.

"Fiends are scary," Dee added. "I woulda hugged you but Eddie said I can't do that anymore."

"Three broken ribs are enough, unibrow."

"We bumped into her on our way here," Lilith said. "The way she told it, she doesn't know where she is and doesn't have any place to go, but someone might come look for her in the next few days. We were already heading here so we thought we might pass the buck to the Followers on the way."

2D crossed his arms. "You must be proud of the world you helped create."

"Huh?" Haru blurted out.

"Fuck off, 2D," Phoenix growled. "You're gonna take her in or not?"

"Of course," 2D replied in indignation. "I have a conscience, unlike-"

"C'mon, don't make this difficult," Eddie butted in, then turned to the Khans. "Did you bring the goods?"

"Duh." April reached into her trousers and pulled out two refilled soda bottles – liquids in both bottles were translucent, but one of them had a red tint to it. "Med-X and stim liquid, as always."

2D took the bottle and inspected it against the sunlight. "You could've split it into single doses."

"Oh, I'm sure you have some syringes lying around," Lilith retorted. "Now, payment."

"Uh, what are these things?" Haru asked.

"Medication," 2D explained, putting the bottles in his labcoat's inner pockets. "'Med-X' is a proprietary eponym for morphine-based painkillers, and stims, or stimpaks, boost regenerative functions of the body with little downsides." He reached into another pocket and pulled out a small jingling sack and tossed it at Lilith. "Sadly, the Followers are dealing with the perpetual supply shortages, forcing me to rely on drug dealers."

"I see." Haru found herself concerned about her situation, but simultaneously a little bit excited – she was an observer to an actual drug deal, how scandalous!

"I'm doing you a favor, 2D," Phoenix countered. "I can find other buyers."

"Can you?" Eddie replied. "Who'd want to associate with Khans with NCR around the corner?"

"Whatever," Lilith glanced into the sack, to check if it wasn't loaded with nuts and bolts or something. "You got your goods, you paid, now fuck off. Same time next week?"

"I will need a fortnight to gather funds this time," 2D sighed. "Freeside continues its downward spiral, making that task increasingly more difficult."

Lilith processed that for a moment, then put her hand in the sack. She pulled out a small fistful of what looked like bottle caps and glanced at her companions. They didn't protest, and she handed it back to 2D. "Here, a small donation for the cause."

He opened his mouth to protest.

"Shaddup," Phoenix interrupted him. "We're giving you another mouth to feed, so take the caps."

With a sigh, 2D pocketed the money. "Thank you. Your meager assistance makes a difference and I'm grateful for it. I wouldn't have bothered otherwise."

"Don't mention it," Lilith said, then turned to Haru. "I can vouch for these three. They'll take care of you." She turned around to walk away, and the other Khans followed. "Good luck, Okumura."

They marched back towards where they came from. Eddie glanced at the new girl. "Alright, Floof, what was a Renoite rich girl doing on Fiend turf?"

Haru tilted her head slightly, unable to come up with a passable lie. "Uh…"

"Give her her space, Eddie," 2D interjected. "She had gone through a traumatizing experience. She will discuss it at her own terms and in her own time."

"Right, sorry about that. Let's bounce."

The three Freesiders went down the road between the stone wall of McCarran and the billboard barricade. Haru followed them. "Alright, first of all, Floof?" she asked.

"'Cause your hair's fluffy and stuff?" Eddie explained.

"I guess… Where are we going now?"

"We're gonna head back to Freeside," he replied. "So you get to relative safety and 2D won't have to carry around expensive meds in glass bottles."

"When we reach the Followers headquarters, you will receive medical attention," 2D added. "If our fr- ahem, acquaintances didn't embellish anything, your mental state needs to be evaluated as well. After that, you may remain on the premises for as long as necessary." He glanced at Eddie. "Do you have any plans for the rest of the day?"

"Garrets had a job posting, and-" Eddie snapped his fingers in realization, then turned to Haru with a smile best-described as 'used car dealer'. "You're short on caps, ain't ya, Floof? I might have a job for you, no experience necessary. What do you think?"

Haru's response was raising the axe a little bit higher and giving him a pointed glare. "I think you're trying to scam me, Eddie," she said, with just a bit of edge in her voice.

"Wha-no!" He raised his hands in surrender, nervous. "It's a debt-collection thing, I thought you could just stand there with an axe and be scary!" After a beat, he pointed at Dee. "Scarier than this dope, at least."

Dee grinned in response, reinforcing the point.

"Oh!" Haru lowered her weapon. An opportunity to make money and get a feel for the area would be useful. "Sure, I can do it."

"And you'll do a splendid job at it, I'm sure," 2D quipped.