Free Labor

The audience with Ashur was in his palace in Uptown, wherever that was. One of the Mill bosses had said it couldn't be missed. There weren't many buildings that tall lit from both outside and in. Outside, sure- everywhere they looked, it seemed, there were generators and high-powered lighting rigs. But not inside. Most of the buildings that had indoor lights were clustered together, old apartment complexes chock full of raiders, or bosses, or- or whatever they were supposed to be called.

Technically, Ellen realized, she probably at least qualified as one of the bosses thanks to the Hole fights. She shoved the thought away.

There were plenty of people on the streets, even with evening coming on. Some of them jeered in Ellen's and Voodoo's direction. A few called out congratulations. Ellen ignored them. Maybe she might've learned something from them, maybe not. All she wanted was to get to Ashur and talk to him directly. She was tired of second-hand information and people pushing her in every direction except the one that mattered. Find the Palace, talk to Ashur, secure Dave, and get out. That was... that was it, really. That was all she had the energy to deal with.

She stepped past a purple-haired woman who was busy handing out noodles to the other raiders, turned a corner, and froze in her tracks at her first truly close sight of Ashur's palace. What the statue was supposed to be, she didn't know. She didn't want to know. Biological horrors were one thing, but deliberately hideous statues of God alone knew what kind of torture were something else again. If she'd had any delusions of this being a bearable place, they'd have been well and truly laid to rest by the sight.

Well, in for a calf, in for a Brahmin.

There were several heavily armed and armored raiders at the front door. Their gear looked like someone had seen a suit of power armor once and tried to build an imitation without a clear understanding of the way it functioned, or the necessary parts. Her own gear aside, Ellen had seen the armor of the Enclave, and she'd seen John-117's suit; she was not impressed. When two of them stepped in front of her and Voodoo, she merely held up the one thing she'd taken from the Hole and not turned over to Everett: Gruber's rifle. "I have an appointment with Lord Ashur," she said. "Let me in."

"Yeah?" said one of the armored raiders. "What about him?"

"He's with me."

"It ain't an appointment for two people-"

"He's with me," Ellen repeated. "If I'm the only one Ashur will talk to, then my friend here can wait in the next room, but he's with me."

"Fine, fine." The raider threw up his hands. "Your funeral."

Ellen rolled her eyes and stepped past, into a room with a ceiling so high that every footfall echoed. It half reminded her of Vault 101's atrium, save that the floors and stairs were of cracked marble and the walls some sort of painted plaster. That, and while there was a balcony on which several raiders strolled or insolently lounged, there was no sign of an Overseer's office window to allow Ashur to watch for incoming visitors. There were, however, a pair of doors with neither handles nor knobs at the back of the balcony. They looked familiar; after some thought, she found the button panel to one side and summoned the second elevator she'd ever encountered in her life. The last one had taken her to the top of the Washington Monument. This one... well. It only seemed like it was going that far. At least, she hoped.

When the doors slid open, they revealed pitted walls and chipped-tile floors in three directions. It reminded her a little of the halls of Congress, a surprisingly comforting thought. She'd managed pretty well in those, after all, and there were no supermutants or Talons here to chase her down. That was something. It certainly lightened her mood enough that when she found her way to the end of the hall, she very nearly smiled at the scraggly-bearded man in the heavy protection suit who stood in front of the last pair of doors.

Nearly, anyway.

"Lord Ashur will be right with you," the man said. "Your friend's gonna have to wait out here, but you can feel free to wait inside. I suggest you stow that piece out here as well. He don't know you yet."

Well, she'd expected as much. And it wasn't as if she didn't have Karkat's deck with her. There were weapons in that. She nodded, and turned to Voodoo with Gruber's rifle. If anything went wrong-

Well. It'd be anticlimactic, that was for sure.

She sighed inwardly, patted the belt pouch with Karkat's deck in it, and stepped through the double doors.

The room beyond bore more resemblance to the display galleries of the Museum of History than to Congress. There had been art of some kind on display here once, but all that remained of it was a solemn stone head mounted on the wall behind an obviously dragged-in desk with a computer terminal and holotape recorder on it. She didn't recognize the bald man in the spiked leather standing to one side, but there was no mistaking the seated figure in the power armor with the Brahmin-skull shoulder...

"I'm telling you," said Ashur to the spike-wearer, "I've got it covered." He glanced in Ellen's direction. "I'll be with you, right after I maintain some order and dispense a little justice."

The spike-wearer rolled his eyes. "And I suppose you'll follow that up by raising the dead?"

"No," said Ashur dryly, "but I may heal the infirm later in the week. Time permitting, of course."

The spike wearer started to say something, but bit it back. Instead he said, "Sir, we've had sightings of Wernher outside of town. And there's definitely an increase in chatter among the slaves-"

"Workers."

"What?"

"I've told you this before, Krenshaw. We call them workers. Helps with morale. Reminds them that they might earn their freedom someday."

"Whatever we call them, they're walking off with way too many tools with edges it's way too easy to sharpen." Krenshaw crossed his arms over his chest. "If they ain't making weapons out of them-"

"All right, all right," snapped Ashur. "Put your guards on alert, then. Tell them to be on the lookout for anyone loitering downtown. Send an extra patrol or two out to scour the riverside areas for Wernher. And keep a watch on Midea at all times. Anything big happens, it's bound to go through her. Now, I've got a very important meeting with our new friend. If anything actually happens while I'm in here, you know how to use the intercom."

"Yes, sir," said Krenshaw, and tossed off what might have been a salute.

"Okay, break's over." Ashur turned from the retreating Krenshaw to face Ellen instead. This close, she could see dirty blond hair and a slightly darker beard, and an only slightly pollution-marred face. "Nice work in the Hole, new blood. Knew you couldn't be one of our normal workers."

She didn't know what to say to that.

Ashur fixed her with a piercing look. "So," he went on, "that begs the question. Who are you, and what are you doing in my city?"

For half an instant the thought of saying oh, I don't know, kill you, steal the cure for the city's disease problem, free all the slaves, that sounds like a good way to end the day ran through her mind. What she said was, "It's a long story. Mostly, I'm just here to find one man."

Ashur raised one eyebrow. "Is that so," he said. "Mind if I ask which man?"

"His name is Dave," Ellen said. "You wouldn't know him, I don't think. He's a ssss- a worker, brought in a few days ago, from the Capital Wasteland."

"Hmm." Ashur stroked his beard a moment, frowning. "I can't say I recognize the name. We get a lot of workers from the Capital. I imagine someone could help you find him, though... but there's something that needs to be cleared up first."

Ellen tensed a little, tried to hide it.

"Tell me, honestly," said Ashur, "and don't let the laser turrets on the wall behind you influence your answer.... do you know a man named Wernher?"

Her snort of response was half disgust, half relief. "I ran into him in the railyard outside town," she said. "He had a man from somewhere called Monroeville with him, until he got the other man killed in a fight. He's got stupid plans he tries to make other people follow through on, and he's a jerk. I left him where I found him. Why?"

Ashur blinked in surprise at that. "Is that so?"

"He wanted a total stranger he'd barely given any information at all to run off into the city and help him with some kind of scheme based on the fact that he said it would free his people," Ellen said. And then took a half-step back, because Ashur was the one snorting this time.

"Is that what he said? His people?" Ashur shook his head. "Well, now. That's new. He surely didn't talk like that when he was my second-in-command. Or during the coup I had to put down. I suppose that's how he's trying to get the slaves on his side, incite them to revolt..."

Huh. Huh. At least she'd made one good judgment call today.

"I don't suppose I could talk you into taking up a position in my city's army?" Ashur went on. His tone was almost hopeful. "I could use a lieutenant with your talents. Including wrapping some of my people around your finger- I understand one of them was fighting for you from the audience for a few rounds."

"Something like that," Ellen murmured, and prayed Voodoo hadn't heard through the wall. "But no. Honestly, I'm just here for Dave."

"You've come an awfully long way from the Capital for one man," Ashur observed. "Do you mind if I ask why?"

Ellen closed her eyes, trying to drown out the memory of Voodoo's voice. "His family needs him," she murmured. But what she was thinking was, My family needs him. The closest I'll ever have to one, anyway. And that's enough. "I was asked-"

Ashur's other eyebrow went up; he looked her up and down slowly, thoughtfully. Finally, he nodded. "You know," he said, "you strike me as the sort who just might pull that kind of a stunt. You work damn hard for what you want, don't you?"

"What I want doesn't matter, sir," Ellen said. "It's what needs doing, even when it's hard to swallow."

Mr. Brotch had made them watch The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance in class in the Vault, all those years ago, and he'd told them the most important thing about the movie was the message: sometimes, the only reward for doing the right thing was the fact that the right thing got done.

"Now that," said Ashur, leaning over his desk a moment, "is an attitude I can respect."

"Um?"

Ashur's mouth quirked at that. "I can't imagine you got a good impression of my city," he said, "considering how you came to be in my office today. I can assure you, what I've done with the place is an improvement. This place used to be nothing but a nightmare. Today, while the rest of the world scrambles to survive, we've got an army, industry, and thanks to a recent surprise, no need to fear radiation..." From inside his desk he produced a series of holotapes. "That is, assuming you're interested."

Ellen eyed the tapes. "Is this the cure Wernher was talking about?"

"It is," Ashur confirmed, "but it's not the kind that frees slaves. You'll understand, I think, once you listen." He slotted the first tape into the player and added, "I recorded this for somebody else, you understand. I don't find too many people who can appreciate it."

There was a moment's silence, and the tape began to play.

"Test, one, two. Looks like this thing's on. Marie, if you're there, this is your father speaking: Ishmael Ashur, sometimes called Lord of The Pitt. Now, I hope you're hearing this ten years from now, sitting on my knee safe and sound. Right about now, I bet I'm looking pretty silly. But things don't always work out the way we'd like. There are a lot of risks, including what your mother would do if she heard me talking like this. And I'm not about to risk leaving you alone without knowing where you came from. These tapes are for you, so you can know who your father really was."

"How old is your daughter?" said Ellen curiously as Ashur switched out the first tape for the second.

"Couple of months old," Ashur said. "Little Marie's Sandra's and my pride and joy."

Ellen found herself wishing, just for a moment, that her father had ever bothered to record anything for her beyond the tape she'd found on Jonas' corpse a lifetime ago. She pushed the thought down, and nodded.

"Marie, the first thing you need to know is that I wasn't always the Lord of The Pitt. Long before I was a king, I was a scholar and a soldier. In fact, I was in the Brotherhood of Steel."

"!", said Ellen, or something like that; Ashur paused the player. "Something wrong?"

"I'm sorry," she said, shaking herself off. "I've- heard of them. They've been busy lately in the Wasteland."

"Still just scavenging?" Ashur shook his head. "If they could just bring themselves to make something of that place. They don't know what it really takes to run a city... I'm sorry. You don't need to hear that, I'm sure. Not if you're here now. Shall I continue?"

Ellen thought of the missions to all the Wasteland communities, of the work at the Purifier- of the ties Lyons had forged with Rivet City and with Megaton alone. But she nodded, and said, "Please."

"You've probably heard about them," the voice on the tape went on. "But you may not have heard what we did to this city: the Scourge. When we came here, The Pitt was just a breeding ground for Trogs, cannibals, and worse. Commander had us torch the place and take what we could. The Pitt had useful technology, but it was suicide to stay here. So when an explosion left me buried in the Mill, my brothers were sure I was dead. I don't blame them for leaving. I probably would have. We thought nothing could live in The Pitt. We were wrong."

The third tape, now. "Marie, you know those fights in the Mill's arena? Well, its first fight was when I woke up to someone pulling me out from a pile of rubble. At first I thought it was my brothers pulling me to safety. Instead, it was a scavenger trying to steal my armor. She didn't get it. But I learned she had a whole family of scavengers. They'd make raids into the city for gear from the Mill. And that gave me an idea. This was the only working steel mill we'd ever seen. In a world of leftovers, it was a chance to build again. And that was worth any price. The scavengers saw me as a god, so along with my Brotherhood know-how, it was easy to set up the basics. We started to build a city."

Corazon, Ellen thought, had made mention of the work of the New California Republic. Where did their gear come from, if they had no steel mills or manufacturing? Had Ashur simply never seen any of it?

(Or, said a little voice at the back of her brain, was it yet another father telling lies to yet another unwitting daughter, secure in the knowledge that he was justifying everything he'd ever done?)

The fourth tape began to play. "As word of a new settlement got out, the city started growing, and fast. When Raiders attacked, I'd kill the leader and recruit the rest. I had to. The city's disease meant we couldn't have children, so recruiting was the only way to grow. And as we grew, the Mill needed more workers. And, yes, that meant recruiting workers by force. I'm not proud of it, but it's the only way to keep the city supplied and armed."

Revelations 21:6 and Hebrews 10:30 were Bible verses Ellen knew very well, but there was another one bubbling up now, after hearing the word worker thrown about so many times: the first epistle to Timothy, chapter 5, verse 18. For Scripture says, 'do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain', and, 'The worker deserves his wages'. She wondered, a little, if Ashur had ever paid anyone anything at all, or simply decided only the ones who could take compensation deserved it.

The tape rolled on regardless. "But it was always a temporary solution, until our best scientist found a way to cure the city's epidemic. Sandra and I worked on it day and night. And after one, particularly late night of work, we were blessed with a cure. It's the cure inside you, Marie. Even now, we're doing everything we can to figure out how to share your gift with the city - while keeping you safe, of course! So by the time you're old enough to hear this, you'll already be a hero. Congratulations, Marie. You've already saved us all. I knew you would."

Ellen stared at the machine as the last tape ran out, and then looked to Ashur. "Your daughter-"

"Is the only child born in this city in decades that hasn't started mutating or worse within a month of being born," Ashur confirmed, pride in his voice. "My little Marie's immune to the worst this place can throw at her. And the day her mother and I can figure out how to replicate that immunity, how to distribute it to the people of this city- that's the day we won't just build here. That's the day this city will live."

"So Wernher," Ellen said slowly, "was asking me to sneak into this city and kidnap your daughter so that he could hold you to blackmail."

"That's the size of it," said Ashur. "Are you absolutely certain you're not interested in that position in my army? Kill Wernher for me, before he sets the city to rioting and causes needless deaths, and it's yours."

She thought for a moment of an entire city full of angry, desperate workers with nothing to lose, and shivered a little. And then she thought of why those slaves had nothing to lose in the first place.

"Sir," she said, "I promised I'd bring Dave back to his family. Believe me, I intend to come back here. I'm sorry I can't do what needs to be done here right now. But I need to bring him home first."

"I understand," said Ashur. "I'll tell Krenshaw to find this Dave for you and have him ready to travel. You're welcome in the Pitt any time you choose to return."

He meant well. He meant every word of it. And that knowledge left Ellen feeling like she'd just crawled out of the Monongahela.