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Clayton West savoured one last lungful of smoke, before letting his cigarette hit the earth with a soft thud. 

He stood in a clearing of irradiated soil and sandblasted rocks, a few miles from Reno’s outskirts. Stretched out in front of him was a single-file line of of prisoners, all bound and gagged and forced onto their knees. They were dressed plainly, in bland rags, and seemed to be withered from malnutrition. 

“Think that’s everyone,” Smog announced, making his way across the scorched earth, and over to West “How you planning on getting this bunch out to Utah?” 

West said nothing, simply reaching inside the pocket of his trench coat, and removing what looked like a slightly chunkier revolver. He raised it over his head, firing off a short into the bleak silver sky above. 

A smoldering red flare leapt out of the barrel, lurching upwards, until it disappeared behind a blanket of grey clouds. 

No more than a handful of moments later, the sharp chopping of propeller blades hissed through the air, and the squat body of a Vertibird Gunship broke through the skies above. The Vertibird landed a stone's throw from where the two men stood, its engines gradually dying. 

The side door opened with a hiss, and a figure that was clad from head-to-toe in a set of bulky X-01 Power Armor stepped out, sending up a puff of sand as their feet hit the earth. 

“[b]Ready on your command, sir[/b].” boomed a deep, metallic voice. 

“Excellent,” West nodded “let's get these mutants aboard.”