Chapter 22 Structure and routine

John’s life had returned to being governed by structure and routine, so much so that the next month flew by. For the first two weeks, at o’six hundred on the dot, Sara would bring breakfast. Usually oats and an orange each. Getting more comfortable being in the room that belonged to her friend Alice as he rearranged it. Displayed the handful of books the elder and Sara gave him.

After which he’d report to Sentinel Grimm, and his course. John developed a profound dislike for the man that screamed at him all day. He loved running the obstacle course, he didn’t need to be insulted to do it.

The course changed daily, getting more complex, giving Grimm a whole new set of orders to bark. First the changes were simple enough. A net to climb up and over. A tilting girder to balance along that made an immensely satisfying clang when he cleared it. Stacks of the wire mesh blocks that forced him to zigzag through.

In the second week things got more vertical. Three flights of steel stairs connected to a pole to slide down. Soon replaced with a thick rope that burnt his hands as he slid down it. A girder suspended above a water tank. Mounds of loose rubble, piled high, to scramble over.

He fell, took a knock here, a scrape there. But the impact protection panes in the vault-suit, plus a decade of hard labour meant he shrugged them off easily. Which was good because Grimm saved ‘pasty-mole-rat-son-of-a-bitch’ only for when he fell.

Sara would come and rescue him in the afternoon. They’d eat a pre-war pouch meal, then spend a few hours shooting the range. John felt bored of that by the fourth day. Even when Sara brought bolt action rifles and pump action shotguns. It felt simple. Whether from the from the decade of drills, rivet guns, used endlessly in the Vault. Or the implanted muscle memory, he couldn’t say, he didn’t think it mattered much anymore.

The sense that basic training didn’t warrant the attention of a paladin grew as the days turned to weeks. John assumed Grimm just liked screaming at people. But if he felt bored, he could only imagine how dull it felt for Sara. She hid it well, even when John would insist he could be left alone. She’d smile and crack a joke about enjoying her time on base, which she clearly didn’t. That much was obvious from the way her eyes followed the Veritbirds as they flew in and out.

As it grew dark Sara would get food and bring it to him in his quarters. Sometimes she’d join him. Sometimes Val would instead, and at least once a week the elder.

John left the simple metal hinged door open constantly. It caught him so off guard to see the leader of them all, the man that held the attention of hundreds, simply knocking and asking to come in. The only people above him that ever came into his previous underground room were Vault Sec. They didn’t knock, and they definitely didn’t ask.

The first time Elder Maxwell joined him he said the same as Sara, that if no one was around he could call him Clark. John did so, rarely.

That first visit he helped John untie, soak and retie his lanyards, much tighter. He taught him a few more knots. Inquired politely about how his training went that day. Asked if he’d started the history book, he had, and made polite, vague, conversation.

The idea that the leader would visit the lowest of their ranks seemed odd to John, at best. Yet the elder didn’t act as anything more than good company. John felt like taking a meal with someone under him wasn’t uncommon. Even the lowest ranked were treated with respect. John admired that.

His evening meal was always meat with vegetables. Crunchy, thick cut sticks that tasted like tatos. Minus the hint of bitterness. Juicy meat in soft bread, burgers. They were his favourite. Although it all tasted pretty good, even the hot stuff that Sara loved.

Once he’d eaten, Sara would take him to the fake leather seats on the roof of the steelworks. A small square of tranquillity, high above the bustling outpost. They’d talk, joined more often than not by Val. They were holding things back, as did John, far bigger things than the location of their home. So it limited their conversation to bad jokes John didn’t get, embarrassing stories about their training, and the weather.

Nothing came close to the stunning beauty of the infinite starry night. Save for a staggering demonstration of the word storm, at least it felt that way to John.

One night as they sat, John complaining about Sentinel Grimm. Sara laughing hysterically at him as he repeated the day’s insults that were more varied than the course he ran. The night above flashed over green for a brief instant. His first reaction had been to breathe deeply. Preparing to fight the onset of the nightmare, dreamlike state. Mercifully absent since their unceremonious meeting, but he didn’t even feel a trace of it.

Sara held a pitiful look from her face with a smile and told him to count. By the time he got to six, a low, distant, rumble sounded. More flashes followed, vivid green, gone before you ever really saw them. Followed by decreasing amounts time between light and sound.

Val explained the storm in detail, too much detail. He managed to grasp two things, this barely counted as a storm, and you did not want to fly in one. By the time the gap between lightning and thunder reached two, they left the private rooftop square. Walking slowly down the metal stairs and gantries.

John’s first instinct, based on the sound he heard was there must be a broken pipe. Water hitting something hard. Then the sound filled the repurposed hangar. The steelworks dormant, tiny pings of sound echoed down from the curved roof. Bouncing back from the machinery below.

He remembered the word Robco taught him, rain. He felt like standing in it, simply because he could. He also remembered what else the older, wiser, man told him. The irradiated, acidic, toxic properties the gentle sounding water held.

His day at an end, Initiate Blake would strip his weapons, his gear, and clean all of it to the exacting standards of Sentinel Grimm. Which admittedly he saw the logic in. The crude combat rifle already felt smoother after a few good cleans, and he would have cleaned the rose carved pistol anyway.

Trying not to think about Rosie didn’t really work, not in the quiet moments. Instead he focused on getting her out. Thankful she was at least safe from the abomination that lived out here.

The books helped too. He’d read while he cleaned, stopping and starting, savouring the turning of a paper page. He used the handwritten note as a bookmark. Attached to the first two books, found placed inside his quarters that first night,

‘Dear John, A wiser man than I once said ‘those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.’ Learn the lessons of this history. Your history, and seek not to repeat it.

E.C.M.’

The elder’s writing looked pristine. Flowing loops, unhesitant strokes, all for a simple note. Sara had obviously seen the book titled ‘A Brief History of Warfare, Volume one’ because she’d added to the writing below.

‘P.S. Those who do not learn the meaning of words are doomed to look foolish.

P.S.M.’

The insightful, ever practical, paladin left him a book filled with words, and more importantly, their meanings.

He read the history book every night for at least an hour. He didn’t think it was meant for adults due to the, admittedly beautiful, drawings. While looking up words he didn’t know in the invaluable gift from Sara.

He read about armies fighting armies. Country fighting country. He looked at drawings of long dead generals who fought with swords and spear. He read about the knights of the old, old, old, world, armoured in steel, like the knights around him. He read of brutal tribes that fired wooden arrows from horseback. He skipped a chapter titled simply ‘The Three Hundred’ at the elders request. But couldn’t resist reading the chapter after that. Not once he’d seen the drawing of two men, facing each other, swords drawn and held high. Noble warriors who fought with slightly curved, sharply angled, hand forged swords. Who prized service and honour above all else. Save perhaps for revenge.

As he read the gift from the elder, he spent all most as much time looking up words in the gift from his daughter. He looked up words like empire, continent, globe. He looked up the word ocean, and hoped to see it for himself one day. Hoping more to show it to Rosie.

He even looked up one or two of Grimm’s insults, deciding not to look up the rest, looking up Valkyrie instead. A female warrior that descended from on high to choose who lived or died, that apparently wasn’t real.

Sara suggested he might want to skip the chapter titled ‘Spartacus’, and he had every intention of doing so. Until he recognised a word Robco used before, slave.

After he finished the chapter he looked up the word slave, and the word rebellion. Seeing the elder’s finely written words on his bookmark about history repeating. Feeling better about his choice not to let Rosie start a riot to cover their escape. It didn’t work out well in past either, least of all for Spartacus and the slaves he freed.

Every time he opened the book, and every time he closed it, he read the words on the note. First to hear Sara’s impression of her father in his head. Second to remind himself that someone had entered his quarters, absent invitation or permission. And most importantly, to try to the learn the lesson of history. This history at least. He understood two things above all. There is always war, and war never changes.

After the first two weeks Sara took him to the mess to eat, and stopped doing that after two days. Leaving him to take his morning and evening meals in the company of others. It didn’t help much with the isolation.

He’d felt lonely in the Vault for years, especially that last month when he and Rosie weren’t speaking. They fought before but never for that long. Yet here it felt different, amplified by the camaraderie of the Brotherhood somehow. He always seemed to be arriving as people were leaving or vice versa.

No one seemed unfriendly, he sat with people on occasion, yet said very little. Someone asked him about Shadowtown once and he all but ran out, nearly knocking a cart of piping hot food over.

His training advanced. Sentinel Grimm began only shouting two things. His time round the course, and contact, followed by a direction. Ordering John to shoot a metal plate with his rifle, standing closer and closer. Forcing John to be accurate while his pulse raced.

Sara came for him much earlier now, taking him into the nearest hangar, into to what she called the Kill House. A series of shifting walls, doors, and rooms, quite literally plucked from the old world. Used to create a maze filled with targets, running the entire breadth of the hangar. Surrounded by a gantry that allowed the paladin to observe his every move.

Sometimes he would be told to move slowly, pistol suppressed, opening doors quietly. Ready to shoot, and most importantly, not shoot. Depending on the blue or red faces painted on the person shaped targets.

If he made a mistake Sara would fire her silver pistol, often near him. She'd shout at him that he was dead, and dead men ran laps. Either the obstacle course, or the perimeter wall if he’d been killed in a particularly stupid manner. John didn’t mind the running. It felt good to be outside, and helped tamp down the pipboy driven reactions to being shot at.

By the time he finished his lap the Kill House would be rearranged. Doors swapped for walls. Left turns changed to right. Narrow hallways reconfigured into open rooms.

The instructions shouted by Paladin Maxwell changed each time, if not sooner. Switching to the compensator on the rose carved pistol, kicking in doors, clearing rooms at a high speed. Sometimes he found Val inside. Unnerving given the live ammo he burnt through on each run. The paladin would shout down whether this time Val had been killed or wounded. If she were a knight or a civilian, sometimes she would be a raider pretending to be dead, ‘killing’ him when he passed her.

If she was playing a wounded knight he would have to treat her using a plastic training medkit. It felt pretty much the same, inject the rapid healing stimpack, dress the wound, get the causality to help. It made the training real in a sobering way, even Val took it seriously, mostly. She hadn’t really flirted at him much. Apart from when he would have to pick her up over his shoulder and carry her out. Then she would slap his backside to congratulate him for ‘saving’ her.

After a few hours in the Kill House, or running laps, Sara would leave and Sentinel Grimm would join him. To train unarmed combat. John could count on one hand the number of fights he’d had in his life, and still have fingers left. He’d always felt grateful that given his size and build people rarely got in his face. Those that did were usually dissuaded by John looking meaner than he actually was.

Outside the Kill House, still within the cavernous hangar, weight benches had been arranged. Thick bars welded to scrap, some needing two hands, some made for one. He’d wanted to try these since he got here, but the weight benches outside were always crowded, and he feared giving away the pipboy too much. He felt happy to have his own set, however he would have preferred joining the others.

Alongside the weights hung a heavy bag he would punch with padded gloves. Ropes for skipping, not in the playful way children used old cables in the Vault, in a much more skip till your heart explodes kind of way. And a flat square of padded mats Grimm referred to as a ring. The first time Grimm summoned him had been the only real reaction from the pipboy in the entire month.

Grimm told him to ditch everything except the vault-suit and join him in the ring. He stood there, stripped down to his blue suit, facing the sentinel. His expression blank, his barking voice silent. He drew a ten millimetre pistol from behind his back and fired directly at the pipboy.

A direct attack to the jet black device on his arm drew an instant reaction. Bringing the nightmare, dreamlike state and slowed time out quicker than ever before. The green overlay highlighted the battle hardened sentinel. Giving John a solution to disarm him that took every ounce of willpower he had to ignore. It faded from his vision, bringing him back to reality.

The sentinel looked him in the eye the whole time. No doubt scanning for the green lines around his iris that showed under ultraviolet light. Seeing the initiate’s obvious fear, the sentinel immediately knelt on the mat. Both knees down, but still resting on the balls of his feet. Teaching John to breathe slowly, deeply, disciplined, till the panic subsided.

Sentinel Grimm seemed an entirely different person over the next two weeks, compared to the constant berating, he barely spoke. Every time he easily pushed John down to the padded mats, he’d wait for the insult, for the punishment, yet none came. Only a battle scarred arm to help him up and simple corrections to his form. Where to place his feet, when to shift his weight, when to attack and when to brace. By the end of the first week he could hold his own, by the end of the second week, he could knock the Sentinel Grimm down, just.

The other change in the last two weeks came after taking his evening meal. After eating in the mess Sara would take him to the briefing hangar. During the day it served a practical purpose, the metal seating facing a podium backed by a big projection screen. Providing details about whatever missions the Brotherhood wanted done that day. In the evening, almost every other night, there would be a reading, or a lecture, or the firm favourite, movies.

Sara took him the first time to find the few dozen or so in attendance sat outside. Staring up into the sky as a thin man in glasses and a fine red robe spoke. Naming the stars, the planets, highlighting them with a laser pistol that projected a tiny dot into the night above. John couldn’t follow most of it. He followed the red dot easily enough, but the words were too strange. Almost a different language, John wished he could have recorded it for Rosie.

A few days later the elder joined him in the mess. Sitting casually at his table, while they ate the same meal. He even queued up behind the handful of knights ahead of him. John saw enough to on his panicked rush through level one to know those people never ate a gelatinous protein bar their whole lives. After they ate he followed the elder to the briefing hangar and sat with the others as the elder read the chapter titled ‘The Three Hundred’.

John felt glad he’d resisted the temptation to read it himself. The elder’s gravel voice, powerful presence, and passion for the ancient warriors, brought the words to life in a way his limited imagination couldn’t.

The Three Hundred were the private guard of a king whose entire culture was dedicated to becoming the finest soldiers they could be. With shields, spears, lifelong training, and a belief that death in battle was the noblest thing any soldier could achieve. A mere three hundred fought off one million invaders for days, until they were slaughtered to last man.

John didn’t understand how this story got the responses of cheers and chants from those around him. The heroes died. Yet their sacrifice inspired others in their homeland to fight. Not just soldiers, and they drove the invaders from their homes.

The elder barely looked at the book. He knew this story, most of them did. He would project the beautiful drawings, proud warriors, draped in red cloaks, crested helmets. All linked together behind a wall of bronze shields, called a phalanx. Each protecting the man to his left as they struck at the invaders with sword and spear. Then he understood why the Brotherhood loved it. They lived it. Thousands of years later, with power armour, flying machines, and automatic weapons.

The biggest crowds, and the loudest reactions, came from the movies. When the podium and overhead projection screen were moved, they gave an unobstructed view to a far larger counterpart. Even for the advanced, highly capable Brotherhood, getting the thirty foot screen into the hangar must have been difficult. It could only have been disassembled, brought back to the outpost, then rebuilt. All for entertainment. John expected it would be like the cartoon slideshows from the Vault. He thought wrong. This showed real people, projected thirty foot high.

He watched a story about a singer. Together with his band, disguised as the best looking waitresses he’d ever seen, robbed a casino in the mountains. Sara loved it, John didn’t care for it. Especially as they mentioned a vault constantly, only for it to be little more than a room filled with the paper money of the old world.

The only thing he liked about it had been the last bit. When the singer and attractive waitresses flew away from the casino in something not too different from a Vertibird. The screen stayed on the breath taking mountain tops. John wondered what they looked like now.

Days later he watched something Val called a double creature feature. Supposed monsters, little more than men in rubber suits, would stalk people. Usually women, often wearing very little.

Another told the apparently true story of a lone sniper. Wounded, his team killed. He walked an empty dessert, till local people took him in. He defended their village from the ‘commie bastards’ trying to kill them. Even Recon liked that one, and as far as John could tell they didn’t like anyone or anything that was outside of their hangars.

The only other movie Sara watched with him had been the most up to date, only a century old. A war story, set against snowy tundra. Knights would cheer and shout as older model power armoured soldiers fought back attackers. Leaving the ‘commie scum’ dead, bleeding out on the pristine snow. John didn’t like it, it felt like someone trying to fool him with a trick he already knew, and wouldn’t fall for again.

The story had been one of defeat. A dishonourable, cowardly, sneak attack, pushing back the power armoured heroes. Who despite valiant efforts, retreated. The last words came from an impassioned general, speaking to more than the pretend troops on the screen. Reaching out to the pre-war people the film was made for a century ago. Imploring them to do their part. Like the lies in the Vault that kept him a slave, in body and mind, for all those pointless years. He took solace in the fact that he’d learned more in a month than in his whole life.

One month and one day after his arrival, his integration, his induction, Sara brought him breakfast. Then took him to the wood panelled, windowed room in the control tower, just as she’d that first morning. Apart from the blindfold, and leaving him to knock. “Come.”

“Elder Maxwell, Initiate Blake reporting as ordered sir.” John got the salute right as he entered and stood to attention. The elder stood and returned the gesture of respect.

“Morning Initiate Blake, please sit.” They were alone in the room, the only thing different was a Brotherhood flag. Bearing the winged sword and cog symbol behind the elder. “Tell me John, how do you feel?”

“Good sir, fed and fighting fit.” He gave an answer he knew the elder would like. The phrase Sara used when she complimented him. Yet the expression in the heavy eyes told him the elder meant something more.

He took a moment to think, putting aside the isolation he’d felt. That he’d begun to suspect he’d always feel till Rosie joined him, if she joined him. He thought about what he’d done over the past month, all the things he could now do. He thought about all the things he’d seen and read. He thought about the stars.

“I feel like a new man sir…Clarke…sir.”

“Excellent. I know it hasn’t been easy and more than a little lonely…” The elder trailed off, leaving space to for John to speak his mind. He admired that about his leader.

“No sir, not easy, but rewarding, and the books helped, thank you.”

“Which was your favourite may I ask?”

“The Samu, Samur, the Forty Seven Ronin sir.” Pronouncing some of the words he’d learnt was still tricky.

“Samurai, it means to serve. Of course the Ronin were men without masters, is why you like it do you think?”

“No sir, well, not just that. They knew what they had to do, they knew what it would cost them, and they did it anyway, because it needed to be done.” The lessons of history, alongside terrifying lessons of here and now had only convinced John he was right to leave first, the way he did. But he also knew he had to get her out as soon as he could. Whatever it would cost him, although he doubted it would involve self-disembowelment. It might just feel like that.

“Do you remember the terms of our agreement, regarding your mapping data?”

“Yes sir, I haven’t used it once.” John barely touched the pipboy in the past month, save for his alarm, and learning to use it to block attacks. With nothing to hide he pulled up his sleeve, scrolled to the blank map screen, and extended his arm for the elder to see.

“Good, I assume you press here to activate it?” The elder pressed the ok button, triggering a pulse, mapping the secret outpost on the screen before them both. John looked worried, not just by the elder’s actions, but by the look in his eye as he watched the data render on the screen.

“You’ve passed basic training. I’m confident you can handle yourself and as such I’m happy for you to accompany my knights in the field, congratulations.” Elder Maxwell shook John’s hand as he did one month and one day ago. “This is yours.” John took the heavy object wrapped in black cloth from the table, he had an idea what it might be, and he was right.

The sentinel steel knuckles from the funeral. Finished to high standard. Edges smoothed, well fitted. The steel plate once flat, now milled to form rows of shallow points. The round grip bar drilled out to save weight. “You rembe—”

“Sentinel Gregory Michaels, yes sir, I remember.” John would never forget that funeral or the horror that led to it.

“May it serve you well.” John saw Clarke for a moment, grieving for lost friend, then Elder Maxwell took over again. “Initiate Blake, report to the Bird’s Nest, Valkyrie is waiting.” John almost ran down to the waiting Vertibird, but stopped himself, knowing the proper response.

“Thank you Elder Maxwell.” He stood to attention and saluted. “Ad Victoriam.”

John didn’t wait for the small elevator, he took the stairs down, as fast as he could. All but sprinting to landing pads to find Valkyrie waiting. Dressed in her flight suit, matched with her brown leather jacket, that all the pilots wore. Her helmet on with the dark lenses pulled down. “Good morning Initiate Blake.” Val seemed more professional than unusual. “Stow your rifle and load those crates, we’re wheels up in ten.”

“Yes sir.” John clipped his crude combat rifle into place above the seating and set about loading up the stackable, nondescript, steel crates. Keeping them neat, even, and strapping them down tight.

Once the last few had been loaded, he felt something advancing toward him, and him alone. The vibrations in the ground drawing closer.

He turned to see a power armoured knight coming right at him. He’d been around long enough to get near the old world mechanised armour, but never this close. The eight foot steel outline. A broad chest, angular shoulder plates, robotic feet and hands too big to be human, and the expressionless helmet. All bearing down on him. He just about managed to stand to attention as the knight approached. Knowing whoever drove the pounding steps, they were to be saluted.

Jutting out from either hip were complex, custom made, handles. Attached to long blades that looked to be made from the same material as the Vertibird rotors. Along the pectoral plate was a row of scratches, painted with the same glowing green radium his pistol sight had. The latest two looked brighter than the others, then a voice came through the speakers in the helmet. “Morning John, you ready for some real work?” Despite the modulation the speakers applied, John recognised Sara, realising what the scratches were as well. Kills. They were a lot of them.

“Yes sir, I think we’re ready.”

“I say when we’re ready initiate not you.” Val’s voice came from the cockpit as she flicked toggle switches. “We are ready though, John you’re up front, Tempest in the middle if you’d be so kind.” John took a moment to compose himself, so he wouldn’t look like a child with a new toy as scrambled into the co-pilot seat, it didn’t help.

“Do not touch anything, do not speak unless spoken to, and if you throw up in my bird, I promise, you’re walking back.”

John had never seen Valkyrie like this. Not even a hint of humour in her voice. Totally focused on the rows of switches, dials, gauges and screens that John couldn’t make sense of. “Put those on.” Without looking she tossed him a set of headphones, fitted with a microphone and speaker in one ear. “You can hear me right?” John nodded. “Good, you can talk to me or Tempest, anything else we’ll relay back for you, copy?”

“Copy.”

Val reached over and checked his seatbelt. Then the whole aircraft tilted right and wobbled back as the power armoured paladin took her seat. Knocking twice on her armoured leg, to signal she was ready. The whirring built, getting louder, faster. The twin rotors reached the required speed. The precisely tuned shape of each blade turning into a blur. “Tower, Valkyrie, at speed, requesting dust off, over.”

“Solid copy Valkyrie, permission granted.” The anonymous voice from the tower cleared them. The expert pilot effortlessly pushed a lever slowly with her left hand, while handling the control stick with her right. The old world flying machine left the landing pad, climbing rapidly. Straight up, into the endless blue.

John didn’t think he was going to throw up. He didn’t remember his first ride in a Vertibird, the only thing he didn’t remember from that night. They cleared the curved hangars and climbed past the tower. Through the thick, bullet resistant, and freshly cleaned glass, John felt like he could see everything. The near crippling fear that accompanied him up to see Lady Luck gone. Sentinel Grimm had screamed the fear from him. The overwhelming sense of exhilaration simply didn’t leave room for anything else.

John knew he couldn’t be that far from The City, he was right. Seeing the foreboding, twisted, structures somehow still dark in the morning light, to the south east of the outpost.

Beyond that something so thin and tall that it could only be The Tower with power. Reaching into the blue from Shadowtown.

He could make out the Green River, shimmering, winding along the ground below. He could see red forest, nowhere near as dense as around Robco’s Rest yet spread far and wide.

New settlements dotted the ground below. Clusters of rebuilt structures, clinging to old world highways. Still standing factories, and everywhere the ubiquitous ruins of the wasteland.

“Alright, show’s over, time to go.” Val reached up to the bank of switches above her head, flipping them without even needing to look. The gentle hover became less so, then jolted John downwards, violently. Instantly followed by thrust forwards that pinned him back in his seat. Fearing Val’s reaction if he regurgitated blood orange and oats inside her spotless Vertibird, he clamped his hands over his mouth. Providing the added bonus of muffling the scream of sheer delight that involuntarily escaped his throat.

“John, if you’re gonna puke there’s bags under the seat.” The ever practical paladin spoke directly in his ear through the comm,. With a tone that said this journey felt entirely routine to her.

“It’s ok, I feel fine.” John said, repeating himself after forgetting to press the button on ear cover to talk. Val seemed to take this as an insult. The fast, yet smooth, flying became a dive. John’s view became nothing but red canopy as they hurled towards it. Val waited to the last possible moment before pulling up and levelling off.

Then, just as quickly as they took off, they landed softly. Just in time for John to stumble out and deposit the breakfast he ate half an hour ago all over the landing pad. Spraying pale red, acidic, vomit on the compacted earth, right in front of Sentinel Grimm.

“Welcome to forward operating base Sierra.” John waited for the insults, the verbal onslaught. It never came, only a scarred arm to help him up. And a bottle of water that he still hesitated to open till Grimm nodded, amused.

John really couldn’t get a handle on the man he’d once disliked more than almost anyone he’d ever met. “At least you didn’t do it in the bird, better than I did my first time in one.” John struggled to imagine Grimm as an initiate, or being bad at something. It made him feel better, which he suspected was the point.

“Listen, John,” Grimm never used his first name, not once. “You remember what we taught you and you’ll do fine.”

“Yes sir, I do, I will, thank you Sentinel Grimm.” John stood to attention as he’d been taught, yet the venerable, highly ranked, sentinel dismissed it.

“Listen to Sara, stay hydrated, and if things go sideways, don’t hesitate, you put ‘em down.” John nodded, rethinking his feelings towards that man that trained him. Before John could thank him properly he dismissed him. The façade back up, and more initiates to train.

The forward operating base consisted of a few large tents. Twin landing pads made of hard packed earth. A block wall, and around fifty people. Knights, scribes, initiates, all far too busy to pay any attention to one more knight walking with just another soldier.

The forward base didn’t seem to be a secret, quite the opposite.

Outside the overtly well guarded gate people gathered. Civilians, if the Brotherhood was being polite, a litany of contemptuous insults if they weren’t.

Some set up stalls trading creature comforts, mostly books and booze. Others brought tips on old world tech. A few looked to be skinny teenagers, seduced into signing up by power armour, or more likely square meals. They all waited beyond a double steel gate with two knights, carrying belt fed machine guns.

Sara stopped at the guard post, cut into a truck trailer. “Package for S. Maxwell?” The scribe turned away and returned a moment later, a slip of lined paper that John thought he recognised. The scribe held it up for the paladin to read, the mechanical hands not built for that level of dexterity. “For you John.” He took the note and read it, his relief and excitement quickly turning to confusion, and hidden panic.

‘J, All is good. Coat is here. Our house is your house. Vodka nearly ready! Glad to know you found good people. Come home soon. R, L,W, and the dog Rusty!’

John didn’t need to share their house, he had his own. Robco made whiskey not vodka. Rusty was the name of the deadly half Sentry bot he’d help make even deadlier. Robco’s note made it plain, the Brotherhood were not good people.