Chapter 5 Wandering the Wastes

Rosie walked for a day straight. Through forests of red, over roads, around ruins and across rivers. She spent the day soaking up the techniques of the people around her. Learning to move cover to cover, shadow to shadow, with little trace and less sound.

Depending on the surroundings they moved in a tight group, or spread out just at the edge of each other’s vision. A double squelch broke over the encrypted comms. The subdermal system took Rosie a while to get used too, it felt like someone talking next to her, not too far away to see. After taking a moment to clear her area Rosie waited for the check in.

“Hurricane, clear.” Paul went first, as he did in the formation, armed with a slung assault rifle and pump action shotgun.

“Whirlwind, clear.” Charlie followed, crouched just ahead of Rosie at the edge of a clearing, submachine cradled across her chest.

“Cyclone, possible site.” Matt moved silently and shadowed to their rear, sniper rifle ready in an instant.

“Tornado, clear.” Rosie took too long to respond. She’d objected to only being issued a high powered nine mil side arm and a lighter pack but had been grateful after three hours cross country.

“Copy all, regroup on Cyclone.”

Matt’s well honed instincts picked out a spot in the shadow of a ruin. Enough cover on the sides, a still standing remnant of a second storey to keep watch from. Close enough to melt back into the forest in minutes. Charlie took her pack. “Rest up, try to sleep, you’ve got a long night ahead.” Rosie took in an all too brief view of the new, old world from high cliffs. Lots of the day had been uphill, but Rosie had seen little more than sparse ruins and dense trees.

Below the winding river glinted orange, weaving in and out of the red canopy. Black strips crossed the open ground. Loosely connecting patches of burgeoning light showing life below. The brightest lights clinging to the Tower in the falling night.

Aided to sleep by the device Rosie woke right on the dot of twenty hundred hours. “Lose the black.” Charlie tossed her pack over containing the only clothes she’d ever worn that weren’t the same as those around her.

She dressed in the pale blue jeans, dark shirt with fiddly buttons and light coloured, pressed fibre jacket. Rosie stood getting checked over by Charlie. The larger cut of the jacket covered the pipboy. The knives at her hips and the pistol on her back, while still being in reach. It soon became apparent from the testing questions that Charlie had concerns for more than just her.

“You do what Brandon says, copy?”

“I know.”

“And you answer his questions.” Rosie failed to hide a look of tension. “Look, he watches out for all us, always has, and you too. There’s no one else I’d rather have at my six.” Charlie buttoned her coat, more concerned with keeping her warm than combat effective.

A series of timed squelches broke over the comm, sent and received, Brandon emerged from the forest. He greeted everyone, pulling down the dull canvas hood, a long coat hiding the cut down carbine under his arm.

“And you are?”

“Your niece Rachel.” Rosie remembered her cover easily.

“And where are we going?”

“Shadowtown, to visit your sick mother.” Brandon smiled and handed her something. Rosie took the black, smooth fabric, pulling it down over her face, lining up the oval slit for her green eyes. Charlie started fussing at her again, folding the mask up into a hat and giving her a pack containing nothing but her own water. Her face smiled but her eyes didn’t. Rosie saw Charlie hold her concerns.

“Good hunting Tornado.” Rosie didn’t know how to respond, Brandon saved her with a quick order.

“Regroup in town.” He checked the pre-war watch on the underside of his wrist, as the others did the same. “Twenty thirty on my mark…mark.” With a silent nod Rosie left the only people she’d seen for a month.

After walking all night, the morning found them following along a metal track. Trees to one side and the occasional narrow ruin on the other. Rosie guessed quickly it had been some sort of transportation system. That became obvious from the store buildings and the long broken switching system. Rosie took point on clearing each one, earning Brandon’s approval. The only sign of life came from a skittering mass clustered around a rad spike, easily ignored by closing a door on the infested washroom.

As the sun began its descent, rectangular containers of corrugated metal began to dot the route ahead. Some tossed clear and leaving wheeled chassis on the track. It soon became a long neat line, all towed by an engine bigger than a building.

“A freight train.” Rosie had stopped without realising. Lost in the application of the laws of physics that made this river of metal move at speeds she couldn’t believe.

“Can I, I mean, I could,” Rosie scrambled for a word other than play and hack. “It might have data I can pull.” Brandon saw through her, but agreed anyway.

After a short climb up the embedded ladder Brandon hauled her into the high cabin of the train engine. Smaller than she thought, two seats up front, two behind. Every surface lined with banks of switches and dials. She found the four pin socket and connected, finding the system as dead as it appeared. After setting up an inefficient trickle charge, the only way she could be sure to charge and revive the computer, Brandon trusted her enough for him to rest a few hours.

Sat in the open cabin door, letting her leg dangle over the side, Rosie tried to keep a watch on the world below. The night and morning had been quiet, Brandon saying no more than a handful of words. His focus on her movement, ears attuned to any sound she made. Rosie couldn’t remember a time she cared about getting anyone’s approval before a month ago. That had kept her mind busy. Now in the ever present deafening silence Rosie’s thoughts drifted to John.

Still no sign of him on the scan, although that didn’t worry her. What did was getting lost in the new data and systems. Letting any number of the potential threats out here get the drop on them. So with little else to occupy her racing mind, Rosie began to think about John and how she would get him away from the Brotherhood.

At first she’d told the Outcasts what they wanted to hear, going along till she get eyes on John and make a break for it. Yet as the device began to expand and fill with data Rosie understood just how much she’d sacrificed to free the advanced system. The thought of finding its origin intrigued her more each day.

It helped that when Rosie would ask about John, they could tell her what he’d be doing. Running a course of obstacles, weapons training, getting shouted at. It all sounded horrible to her, but saw the look of fondness they all had. John might even like the structure and routine, she thought to herself.

As the days turned into weeks one thought above all took hold, only confirmed by the near constant walking of the last day. Rosie needed them as much as they needed her. For all the gifts the device gave her, it didn’t tell her how to find food. It couldn’t tell her about the places to stay, and wouldn’t help her fit in any better out here than down there.

Annoyed with feeling less lonely in a near empty world than surrounded by people, Rosie checked the trickle charge flowing into the long dormant atomic jet engine train. A brutalist design, square fronted with hard edges around a massive air intake. Raw power in place of aerodynamics. With enough charge brimming through the four pin connector to trickle into the computer system Rosie soon found a manifest. The train had been a staggering four hundred crates long at its departure a century ago. She’d marvelled at the less than a quarter still attached and upright.

The recall function allowed her to check off contents against the containers. Some looted of the car parts they carried. Others broken into to find only scrap. Rosie catalogued the remaining containers that were digitally locked, preparing a screen with the information for Brandon to see, hoping to impress.

With the only legitimately useful thing she could do finished, her focus returned to the treeline at the edge of the clearing. That lasted minutes before her mind wandered to the engine she sat in.

Best she could tell from the diagnostic the engine had been manually shut down. The four strong train crew had simply stopped, switched it off and abandoned it. Their priorities shifted in an instant. Leaving the steel beast dormant. The system seemed to suggest that the engine could start with enough of a jolt. Yet the digital interface couldn’t see the overgrown vines strangling the massive turbine.

“All clear?” Brandon stood behind her, ready to move.

“No movement.” Rosie tried to look focused on her watch, but her unfamiliar desire to impress took over. “I cross checked the containers that are still locked against the manifest.”

“You didn’t leave the cab, did you?” Brandon smiled, he didn’t seem to mind the answer either way.

“No, I…it records what I see.” Rosie couldn’t think of a better way to explain it.

“Like a black box, clever.” Brandon hid his shock, just not well enough. “Anything interesting?” Rosie held out the screen to widening, intrigued eyes. “See here, those designations.” Brandon tapped three of the coded numbers. “First one is military, second is police, third is jet fuel”

“I can open them.” She wasn’t sure but took a risk anyway.

“You should rest, it’s going to be a long night.” “I’m not tired.” She lied.

“Rosie, this isn’t going to be easy.” Brandon placed a hand on her shoulder. She sensed a shared sense of a similar wound, no doubt inflicted by a loved one, the only ones who could cut that deep. “Whatever is in there isn’t going anywhere and we couldn’t carry it anyway, trust me.” Brandon stepped back, checking the watch on the inside of his wrist. “Rest.”

“Come on, we can take the scenic route.”

Rosie took point as they travelled through the red forest beyond the train. Brandon followed as she chose the darkest, safest path between blackened trunks and vague footpaths. Movement and pained noises ahead brought her to a stop.

A raised fist and a series of mostly correct hand signals put Brandon up front as he flanked around the source of the noise. Ahead Rosie saw an animal, brown fur, hoofed feet. Twin heads crowned in branch like growths, pointed and intertwined. It’s powerful hind leg grabbed tight by a crude trap of rusted metal and jagged teeth. The more it bucked and thrashed, the more the cruel trap cut, causing more pain and more thrashing. Even with two brains the creature had little understanding.

“Fucking cowards.” Brandon sounded disgusted. “No way to hunt, it's lazy and cruel. See if you can find a long—” Rosie slipped into the dreamlike state. Avoid a goring on the spiked crown while stepping over to the release pin on the spring loaded trap. She tried to ignore metal tearing flesh as she pushed the jaws apart just enough to set them moving. Time snapped back as she stood by Brandon again. Rusted metal clattered to the ground as the animal thrashed again, finding itself free. Instinct took over and it bolted for its freedom.

“A Radstag. Male, old too, you can tell by the antlers.” Rosie felt a pang of guilt as she remembered the last time she’d heard that word, over the fire. “It’s one thing to hunt and kill clean, leaving a trap like that it’s shameful. It could have been stuck like that for days.” Looking at Brandon’s long coat now, Rosie saw the same shade and pattern to it as the creature’s hide. She smiled as the beast bounded from view, pleased at freeing something from it’s pain.

“Rosie, listen, you did the right thing but—” A high calibre shot rang out cutting Brandon off. Rosie ran towards the sound hoping not to find what she knew laid ahead. The animal staggered to its hoofed feet, a deep gash in it’s hind leg and a hole in its belly.

From the dense forest Rosie could see into the clearing, just as three more shots struck the stag, none of them clean. The creature she’d freed lay on the soft ground, bleeding out, until its breathing stopped. A slow and painful death at the hands of the two callous and drunk men.

“Got it! That’s gonna look great on my wall.”

“Your wall? I laid the trap.” The men bickered as Rosie got angrier. They weren’t starving, they didn’t have the respect that Brandon had shown, this was a game to them. Her grip tightened around the pistol at the small of her back as the hunters became highlighted in green. Stalked from the forest by something far deadlier than the stag they shot for fun.

As she drew and prepared her advance to get behind them she felt a firm grip on her shoulder. Brandon lent in and whispered to her.

“We have a mission, we can’t risk it.” She saw the same look in his eyes as hers, and remembered why they’d come so far. Rosie made sure to get a good look at the cruel cowards as she went on her way, preserving a clear picture of the drunks who killed for sport.

“What were you going to do?” Brandon didn’t sound angry, more concerned, which felt worse.

“I don’t know.” Rosie lied, she was ready to delete them both, just like the green shadows from her training. “I just got angry. They shouldn’t have done that.”

"No they shouldn’t, but that doesn’t mean you can just shoot them Rosie.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, I wanted to shoot them too, cowards. If Matt was here he might have thrown them a beating, but they didn’t deserve a bullet.” Brandon stopped and smiled at her. “You kept your cool though.”

“I didn’t want to let Charlie down.” Rosie couldn’t remember the last time she said that about anyone.

“It’s not going to be an easy adjustment for anyone, least of all with your…talents.” Brandon had a forced smile beneath worried eyes. “As for Charlie, you wouldn’t be here right now if she didn’t trust you.” Rosie smiled, without forcing it.

“We should be close, are you picking anything up?” Brandon stopped to hydrate and check his canvas map. Rosie didn’t even think to try a scan, too wrapped up in what ifs for the last few miles of dense forest and sparse ruins.

“Nothing.” The scanning subroutine showed no sign of any assets. She knew that could be any number of things. At worst, the new system couldn’t recognise John's pipboy. The true power within still held back behind the crude code. Rosie knew she could reach the back door she planted years ago, if she could get close enough. Close enough to shout to him.

Brandon held a raised fist, stopping them both in the growing shadows cast by the setting sun. He tapped his ear and pointed in a direction. Then she heard it too, and the system told her what the distant sound was. Automatic gunfire. Brandon sighed deeply, staring at Rosie as he readied his cut down carbine. She couldn’t meet his gaze.

“Tornado, on me, stay hidden.” The use of her given name, the name she had yet to earn, snapped Rosie to the task at hand. Copying the tactical posture, she pulled down the black mask to cover all but her green eyes.

More gunfire rattled and pinged in the distance as Rosie drove thoughts from her mind, keeping calm and steady. A drop in the gunfire sent her scrambling for a bearing from the display inside her eyes till it didn’t matter. Sound burst from ahead of them, a ball of flame reaching up over the ruins. Panic gripped her, freezing her to the spot. Of all her feared reactions, this was one Rosie hadn’t prepared for. “Move!” For an instant Rosie thought Brandon shared her fear.

They bolted through the last patch of collapsed brickwork and up a single remaining staircase. Still clinging to an old concrete wall. Rosie stood looking out over a shallow concrete pit, housing a round metal door, in front of an angled structure. Charred marks from the flames on it.

The system highlighted something in green within the smoke filled structure, like a person but bigger. Before she could identify it Brandon gently pulled her to the ground, handing her binoculars and pointing. She took them and instantly handed them back, relying instead on her own built in zoom.

An armed man, dressed in dull green, strode over to some people. Four of them, chained and beaten. Rosie couldn’t see his face but he looked the right size. Something in his hand drew her attention, a small hammer. He struck down at the prisoners with rapid practiced swings. The man had freed them, saved them as she’d been saved. He turned and Rosie saw John, walking tall, proud and confident. Head up, shoulders back. John looked like a new man, and happier than she’d ever seen him before.

“I know what you’re thinking.” Brandon took her hand trying to reach her, just like John would do. “You want to go down there, grab John and run.” Rosie couldn’t answer, he was right, and there was nothing he could do to stop her. “And you know what, a part of me wants to give you the caps in my pocket and say good luck. Hell, you deserve some peace, both of you.”

“But…” Rosie remembered what Charlie told her about Brandon being good with advice, and Rosie knew enough to know how out of her depth she was.

"Right now John is the jaws of a trap, just like that stag. One wrong step and snaps shut.” Brandon looked through his binoculars and his mood lifted. “There, on top of the bunker, the woman.” Rosie looked and saw a blonde woman wearing an oversized metal helmet and a tight black suit. “Sara. She’s the closest thing I have to a daughter. And, as a sworn knight of the Brotherhood, she has standing orders to shoot me on sight.” Brandon seemed amused for an instant. “Not that she would of course.”

“So she doesn’t follow orders?” Rosie didn’t understand why Brandon found that funny, although it didn’t last. He told her of the day his husband, Sara’s father, cast him out. By refusing to share what he’d learned about the late Burton Blake and Vault X, Brandon broke Brotherhood law. Almost two years ago now. She hadn’t seen John in a month and was ready to put them all at risk to be together. Rosie knew in that moment she couldn’t go to John, no matter how much she wanted to.

“So we find that Vault and the Brotherhood will let him go?”

“The only reason we’re here is to find that Vault. The Brotherhood have been looking for a long time. Clarke…he’s got it in his head that if he’s the one to find it, the people in charge will have to accept him, accept us, but they won’t. That kind of hate isn’t rational. You can’t reason it away. If half of what I know about Vault X is true, the Brotherhood can never find it. They’d wage war on everything and Clarke wouldn’t be able to live with it. I know him, he hasn’t thought this through.” Rosie saw the gears of a sharp mind turning, the unfolding vision of another war bringing fear for one man’s family.

She understood the wound they shared. She felt betrayed by John leaving, Brandon had betrayed his husband for the greater good. The emotion Rosie had hidden from inside the revelations of the device came flooding back all at once. Part of her just wanted to not care, to be angry at John for leaving her. To blame him for dragging them both into this, but Rosie didn’t feel anything but heartbreak.

Rosie hid from the pain as she hacked John’s pipboy, taking back her code and the rest of the hacks they shared. “Got it, forty minutes.” Rosie tried to latch on to hope she saw in Brandon’s face.

“Can you track him?” Brandon asked, the wheels turning in his mind. “It might be useful to know his movements.” Grateful for the distraction she mirrored John’s crude operating system, finding what she guessed. He’d practically ignored even the sliver of secrets the device showed him. The thought of ignored notifications brought a familiar sense of annoyance and quick grin. Rosie found the emergency beacon. Planning to reconfigure it with a rolling encryption and piggy back on the upgraded radio network. Error messages pinged into her view, something she’d always hated, and she let slip a grunt. “What?”

“I can’t turn on the tracker. It doesn’t make sense, it’s like it's already switched on. Could the Brotherhood be tracking him?”

“Could be. He could have turned it on himself.” Rosie hadn’t considered that. Seeing the pride in his face as he freed those people, a pride she shared, changed her idea of how John felt as part of the Brotherhood.

“I’ve got it, I want to leave.” The longer she stayed the closer Rosie came to breaking. Brandon understood. Rosie readied herself to leave but couldn’t help opening the comm channel just to hear John’s voice for an instant.

“All I care about is getting Rosie out in two months, I have a place for us, if it means keeping her safe, I’ll do whatever it takes.” He was sticking to the plan. That brought a lift to her first step into the night, headed towards the other part of the plan John achieved. The Tower with power.

Hours and miles slipped away as they silently moved through shadowed ruins and dark dense forest. At the edge of a treeline Brandon stopped handing her water, his manner eased as he glanced to the horizon. “Not much further now.” Rosie looked ahead, seeing what looked like low hanging stars arranged in impossibly neat rows. The Tower, squares of light reaching into the fallen night.

“We can relax, Brotherhood won’t come this close to Shadowtown. Do you want to talk?” As she rolled the damp mask back into a tight hat she knew Brandon could see her puffy eyes.

“I’m ok.” She wasn’t. “It’s only a couple of months. He’ll be ok, he’s smarter than people think.”

“We’ll get you both clear of this mess, you have my word.” Rosie knew that wasn’t something anyone could promise, yet she believed the conviction in his voice