Chapter 4 “Throw the ball, then catch it.”

Rosie spent the next two weeks resting for as long as she could, marking little victories each day. First a single step, the next day two, before Paul or Charlie had to help her. By the end of the first week she could at least make it to the bucket in the corner by herself. Brandon had left that same night, setting plans within plans in motion. He did however send back a huge stack of books.

Rosie read for at least six hours a day, feeding her mind the information long denied it. Physics, chemistry, advanced mathematics, even some medical books. It felt more satisfying than the real food she ate, four times a day.

The medical tab gave her instructions, how long to rest for, how many calories to eat a day. This in turn gave her a prediction of how long it’d be before the device deemed her combat effective. Every time Rosie asked Charlie to confirm the data she responded in the same way, “That can’t be right, you’ve read it wrong.” Then she’d check the screen and her eyes went wide in shock. It made Rosie smile, and grateful for the rapid healing the device granted her.

After gorging on knowledge from the stack of old world books Rosie would delve deeper into the new operating system. Most of it locked out by her low combat effectiveness. She tried a work around and she found herself thoroughly outmatched by the coding of Burton Blake. Rosie felt a deep connection with the long dead genius. His code had a grace to it, like the music she listened to daily, many elements woven together with fluidity.

The thrill of discovery, combined with the coffees Paul would sneak her, brought back the obsession of writing her esc code. Sleeping and eating took a back seat, like before. This time, in the constant company of people that cared about her, Rosie began to see how her behaviour worried them. Charlie especially.

She started to sound like John, making idle conversation to draw her out, trying to get her to sleep, forcing her to eat. Rosie spent forty hours straight trying to break into the lowest level training section. The system resisted, almost actively, then it shut her down by putting her to sleep against her will. After that she decided to trust the device, sticking to the open systems. Enough of a revelation on their own.

The first thing that drew her in focus in the data tab was something called eidetic recall. Rosie found a grid of tiny images, sorted by date. A near instant swipe of her thumb along her finger brought a screen within screen into her eyes. Projecting a recording of the last few days.

With the new picture expanded it felt almost like living the day over again, able to scroll through it at great speed or freeze a single moment. A level of emotion Rosie kept trying to ignore built as she tried to go back far enough to see John. Bitter relief filled her as it only went back three days. Showing her nothing but the same blue tiled communal showered room she lay in still. Rosie saved the image of the stars and left the rest alone. All of the information stored, loaded onto the device on her arm and in her head, retrievable at a moments notice.

The new mapping data had another dimension to it, literally. The screen on her arm seemed near pointless to Rosie at first, given the innate speed of the display in her eyes. When Rosie looked at the screen the data leapt out in the air above. Light projected in a three dimensional outline of the factory, the only building she had seen since freeing the device. Being able to manipulate that got surprisingly boring quickly, although she did find it funny that no one else could see it.

Everyday someone would help Rosie make it to the roof, just in time to see the sunset. That was the highlight of her day, which surprised her. Able to get back in her shiny blue vault-suit after three days Rosie sat out for hours, getting to watch the endless blue shift to black.

There was always someone with her, even while she slept. Rosie tried her best to understand, she trusted them. They clearly wanted her safe, but it felt like her saviours acted with an abundance of caution. Keeping their guns mostly out of sight and always out of her reach.

Charlie spent the most time with her. The short haired, slender woman, dressed nearly always in black fatigues, took to testing Rosie’s rapidly increasing medical knowledge. The highly trained paramedic, as she called herself when Rosie called her a doctor, gave her more books. And tested her on them with paper cards.

At first it seemed like a fun little game to pass the long boring hours, but Rosie began getting everything right. Aided in no small measure by the pipboy. Charlie made it serious. If Charlie slept, or had left for the nearby settlement, Paul joined her. In her waking moments she mistook him for John. Both of a similar build, but the thick dark beard shattered her hope before it ever really built.

Paul had a deceptively sharp mind, another thing that reminded her of John. She knew better than to think brawn meant no brains. He clearly picked up on the flashes of emotion Rosie displayed and he would tell her what John would very likely be doing at that very moment. That brought a familiar level of comfort. By the look on his bearded face Rosie got the impression that John might be almost enjoying himself. Apparently he would be getting yelled at by someone and be running some sort of exercise track.

Paul explained more about the people John lived with, how they’d live as part of the Brotherhood of Steel. Rosie didn’t understand a lot of it. She thought it sounded too much like Vault, seeing little difference orders from a commander and work orders from the Overseer.

He and Charlie had been partners for ten years, meeting when Charlie parachuted into a battle to patch him up. Rosie had him explain what a parachute was and desperately wanted to try it herself. She asked Charlie about it and got a lie for answer, Charlie clearly hid how much fun it was.

Paul taught her a board game. The pieces on the chequerboard were made from scrap nuts and bolts, each player with a matching set. Paul told her it required strategy and patience. She’d always had plenty of the former and little of the latter. Rosie got checkmated in every game for the first week, and won every game in the second.

She spent the least time with Matt, shaggy blond hair, lean build, with an awkward manner. The closest to her age, although still older and a lot more grown up. In the quiet of the rooftop over the crackling fire Matt told her of his youth, sharing a similar background to her own.

Matt had grown up in an isolated settlement far from here. His people shunned technology of any kind. Blaming it for the state of the wasteland, not entirely without reason, living as they did in the old old old world. Living in caves, hunting and growing all their food, wearing animal pelts. It sounded awful to Rosie, but Matt spoke with a deep fondness. A fine life, until slavers with automatic weapons took him and his family.

Reliving the five years as a slave almost broke him, then he told her of the day Paul and Brandon rescued him. Slaughtering the slavers and making sure no one would enslave Matt again. His time with the Brotherhood only cemented his belief that technology must be controlled at the very least. Rosie began to understand his awkwardness. Rosie tried to ask more about how they’d ended up here, beyond that they no longer trusted the Brotherhood with whatever they needed her help to find. She always got the same answer, ask Brandon.

Her day at an end, Rosie would treat herself with something real to eat. Fruit usually, orange on the outside and juicy red within. Nowhere near as sweet a stolen apple. Half an apple.

Her hands cleaned with gel she took the green, leather bound book from the night stand. The only one Brandon’s note specifically told her to read. The note also explained that the books stacked on the right weren’t real. A detail she almost wished she could forget.

The book told the tale of a man of vast intellect, his gift channelled to solve crimes in a city of the old, old world. The detective had little beyond his obsessive work, save for a single friend, a partner. Together they became more than the sum of their parts, each strong where the other was weak. Her last thoughts as she drifted off were always of John, wondering if he felt safe like she did.

After two weeks of near constant bed rest, and much to Charlie’s no longer hidden surprise, Rosie could walk. Charlie’s old boots were still a size too big but the synthetic panel design and tight ankle support made up for that.

Her arm still had a deep red scar, as did her foot. The one on her arm didn’t bother her, yet she could never avoid looking at the one on her foot as she dressed. Ugly, misshapen, the piece of jagged metal that tore out muscle changed the way her foot felt in her hand.

John would rub her sore feet at the end of a bad day, she wondered if he would be able to feel the difference. Charlie had saved the metal fragment for her. It seemed a little odd to keep it, but Charlie assured her it was a sort of tradition, a right of passage to them.

Every morning Rosie would wake in time to get to the roof before sunrise. Sometimes she’d even manage to get there without waking her companion. Much to Charlie’s annoyance and Paul’s amusement. Matt never slept around her, that upset her more than she thought it would.

A breakfast of oats, mixed with fresh milk, grilled bread and hot coffee started each day. Then the agenda would be set. Rosie would shadow whoever would be leaving that day as they prepared. She would watch what they packed, and how. They would tell her what they were doing, where they were going, and why. Most of the time it was reconnaissance, gathering intel. An office that clearly belonged to the Overseer of the factory had been converted into a workshop. Rosie enjoyed the thought of that.

Cleaned windows let good light into the wood panelled room, the floor covered in hard wearing grey carpet. The first time she entered the tactical system came to life inside her eyes. The wall held a collection of firearms, each catalogued in mere seconds. Rosie knew everything about the long barrelled, box magazine seven point six two assault rifles. The bolt action scoped sniper rifles, the compact ten millimetre submachine guns. Her desire to show off the knowledge quickly earned her a day of stripping and cleaning all of them. Not too different from her typical day, at least this would come in useful.

Rosie’s morning started with a walk round the gantry. Running along the whole edge of the still standing factory, and depressingly familiar to the Vault. She’d stop often, staring down at the old machinery. Best she could work out they were a series of hydraulic presses, ruptured and useless now. Each line of the five or so took in crude shapes at one end. Shaped it as it ran through a conveyor belt, then people loaded into something big that sat in the now empty space. Even when she got up close everything had been stripped beyond use.

Her muscles warmed up Rosie joined Charlie on the roof every morning. Charlie led her in a series of breathing and posing exercises. Rosie dismissed it at first. Slowly holding positions with weird names. Bending on all fours, arching her back, balancing at the edge of her agility. After a week she felt better than she had in years. With her combat effectiveness at a sufficient level, the system training unlocked and Rosie began to explore the secrets the device held.