This city is a rough one, wild and barely tamed, and that also makes it messy and complicated to some. For young men like Nux, though -- the ones who fell through the cracks long, long ago -- things tend to be very simple. As much as the city holds, his world comes down to a few basic things: the cars he steals and scavenges from; the clinic he visits once a month to have poisons pumped through his veins; the tenement he calls home and the haphazard family that's grown up around him there. And Boss Joe, always. Boss Joe's word is law and Scripture both.

Boss Joe's word is what sends him into the alley behind the women's shelter on this particular day. The report comes down the chain that there's a car he's seen parked there that he wants. Nux is, of course, the first to volunteer. It's not hard to find the car Joe has in mind. Nux knows it immediately once he gets there. It's a true standout, a hulking beauty, and Nux is all too eager to get his hands on it as he quietly sets to breaking in.