Free Labor

 is a Fallout 3 quest and achievement that is added to the game in The Pitt add-on.

Retrieve your gear
As soon as you complete the three rounds in The Hole (see its page for detailed info on each round), Krenshaw arrives to tell you that you are free and that Ashur wishes to talk to you in Uptown. Then you are able to retrieve your equipment from the footlocker in the middle of the room and head to Ashur.

Speak to Ashur in Haven
Once there, Ashur asks you to kill Wernher because he's been rallying the slaves and a riot would result in meaningless death. If you pass a Speech challenge you can tell Ashur that you never met Wernher, or that you didn't like his looks. He will tell you about the cure and even ask you to speak with his wife to know more. Simply speaking honestly will also yield this result. After that you must decide either join him or refuse his offer. Here you can either decide to go and kill Wernher, kill Ashur or wait until he is called away and investigate Haven for the cure.

Take care of Wernher
If you choose to leave the "cure" or kill Wernher (both have no effect on Karma if done correctly), slaves will be rioting all through The Pitt. Killing them will cause Karma loss, but they are easily avoided as most are equipped with Auto Axes or Steel Saws.

Wernher may be located by talking to Midea or reading any number of the notes located in her quarters (the Child at Heart perk gets her to admit the kidnapping was Wernher's idea and that she didn't think about what freedom would take). He is found in his hideout, accessed through a door in the Steelyard which was previously inaccessible. You can either ask Wernher to leave forever by passing a Speech check, using the Black Widow perk or killing him for no Karma loss if Wernher shoots first. If a Speech check is used to persuade Wernher to flee, the key to The Pitt Underground will be on the table with various scientific instruments. Because you have sided with Ashur the floodlight control computer in the underground will be gone and will lead to a dead end, as this is also what opens the door that leads to the Haven courtyard.

Aftermath
After completion you: gain access to the Ammo Press; are given a quest to collect and return Teddy Bears to Sandra; are given access to continue collecting Steel Ingots for Everett; are given the perk Booster Shot, which increases rad resistance by 10%; and will still be able to use the merchants.

Bring the cure to Wernher
To side with Wernher, you need to either kill Ashur directly or wait until he is called away and steal the cure. Either way, you will be attacked by Ashur's wife and the Raiders. After making your way out of Haven, you will then find a fight between slaves and raiders. Make your way back to Midea's Quarters, where she will ask you to show her the cure, revealing she knew it was a baby all along. She will give you a note telling you that Wernher has everything arranged and is waiting for you in his hideout inside the Steelyard. After you talk with him and hand over Marie, he will tell you that you must find the "Floodlight Control" and shut down the floodlights which are preventing the Trogs from attacking Uptown.

Shut off Uptown's floodlights
After you are done talking to Wernher, he will give you a Stealth Boy. If you have the Black Widow perk it is possible to get a few Stimpaks or ammo from Wernher. Leave Wernher's Hideout and go to the Underground entrance located at the opposite side of the tracks from the Supply Plant. Enter via a manhole at the very end of the train tracks, similar to the one in Paradise Falls (if you took the secret way when rescuing the children). Once inside there's around two dozen Trogs to fight, along with a Protectron which can be activated to help kill them.

Make your way to a terminal where you can shut off the floodlights. When you finish, exit near the entrance to the Haven's yard.

Deal with Ashur
Here you will be confronted by Lord Ashur and Sandra (if she survived her initial encounter with the player), who will quickly become hostile and attack you. You can kill Ashur and loot his body (he drops his unique Power Armor as well as the key to the Pitt Underground) or leave him to his fate: if you avoid fighting Ashur, a horde of Trogs will swarm the Haven courtyard and engage Ashur and any of his surviving Pitt Raiders in combat.

Siding First with Wernher then with Ashur
You can steal the baby without harming Sandra, kill the raiders, talk to Wernher and just refuse to go along with the second part of his plan and decide to return the baby to Ashur. You must pass a speech (or Black Widow) check or you will have to kill Wernher. Ashur is upset, but ultimately accepts what happened. You have an option to ask him to free the slaves but there is no way to get him to agree. Sandra, however, will not forgive you for kidnapping her daughter but will still accept and pay you for Toys while always having some humorously snarky comments for your character.

Aftermath
If you decide to kill Ashur and return to Midea's house, you will find Wernher outside. He tells you that he will be reorganizing the city and that you should spread the word out of The Pitt in order to get more workers down in the Mill. He also tells you that you earned your share of the Ammo Press, and that if you want you can gather Steel Ingots and give them to the foreman in exchange for gear (a continuation of the Mill Worker quest). You are also given the perk Booster Shot, which increases rad resistance by 10%.

By talking to Midea you are given a quest to collect and return Teddy Bears to her. Haven, however, will be locked so any loot left inside will be inaccessible. The Raider vendors will also be dead, killed by the ex-Slaves. You can find their keys on their bodies for an 'everything must go', but will probably have to make many trips to and from the Pitt to sell all the loot.

Since Ashur is dead, Wernher may make you the new leader of The Pitt. If he does, he will begin to call you boss. On selecting certain dialogue options with Wernher, he may not make you the new boss, his dialogue implying instead that he is the new boss of the Pitt. To ensure Wernher makes you the new leader, select the dialogue option "That leaves me as the new Lord of The Pitt." Whether or not you do end up as Lord of the Pitt, you will quickly learn from Midea that she doesn't "know how Ashur kept these people from tearing one another apart", hinting that Wernher's idea of freedom may have been no better than leaving them under the organized iron-first of Ashur in the first place.

Bugs

 * If you enter Haven proper, triggering the dialogue between Krenshaw and Ashur (during which you cannot interact with either), and return to the Entry Hall before talking to Ashur, he cannot be talked to or pickpocketed when you return, and Krenshaw will never leave. Ashur will instead continue looking at Krenshaw as though the (now finished) dialogue is going on, with his legs twitching. This means you cannot take the baby, or hack the turret control computer. After attacking Ashur or Sandra you can kidnap the baby and the plot continues normally with the slaves' revolt. Also, if you choose to side with Ashur and leave the dialogue after he tells you to kill Wernher, he will not interact with you anymore except to say "Find Wernher and put a stop to this" and "don't let me keep you". Sandra will also not talk to you. You can not steal the baby now unless you kill Ashur and Sandra. If you leave to Haven to go to Uptown the door is locked and says that it requires a key. You may not be able to leave unless you kidnap the baby. If you run into this bug try the following in the console: and . This will reset the quest.
 * Wernher may also randomly become hostile if you exit the Mill to return to the market to complete the quest. If you fight him he simply goes unconscious then regains full health and attacks you again. Instead run past him into Midea's room (sometimes he'll follow you in though), wait and then go out again - by that time he should have killed all the Pitt bosses in the market and calmed down.
 * After leaving the Haven, during the Raiders vs Slaves events, bodies of fallen NPCs will randomly disappear.
 * In the northeastern corner of The Pitt underground area at the bottom of a ramp, where frag mines, cones and a toilet are, the game will occasionally lock up requiring you to restart the console.
 * If you have not previously killed Ashur after leaving the underground area, he will be waiting for you outside. After he attacks you, sometimes the game will lock up requiring you to restart the console.
 * If, before going to Haven and talking to Ashur, you fast travel to the Train Yard, Wernher will be at the gate that leads to the bridge and his dialog will be as if you sided with Ashur. He will then go hostile. If you kill him, the quest will tell you to return to Ashur.
 * The game can often freeze during Free Labor, requiring a reboot or reload.
 * After leaving Haven, the entire Uptown area may be affected by a graphical glitch making it very hard to see anything unless the player faces east.
 * Not only Ashur, but Wernher and Midea also ignore the player in certain cases during the last part of the main quest-line. The biggest issue appears to be if the player refuses to take the baby after speaking with Ashur. In this case the quest is only able to be completed by either murdering Wernher (no option to engage in dialogue), or take the baby and fight the raiders and Ashur's wife Sandra.
 * If you finish Free Labor, sometimes all your items taken by Mex will disappear and you will not get them back.
 * Sometimes, after the completion of "Free Labor" (by siding with Ashur), hostile Pitt Slaves will still appear. If they are harmed by the player OR the raider NPCs, all other slaves become hostile as well.