Chapter 24 “A big metal door in the ground.”

John had been walking for hours. Red canopy, open spaces, rubble. And the ever present, deafening the silence the outpost kept mostly at bay all around. Punctuated by Paladin Maxwell and her heavy, clunking, power armour striding along the nearby road.

She kept her distance from John, walking along the faded blacktop, or trodden paths. Making herself overtly visible, while he’d been ordered to cover her from a few feet back. Only to fire if she fired first.

Before leaving the fob he helped her throw a thick, canvas cloak over the armour. It broke up the shape. When she stopped, as she did frequently, she could almost blend into the grey ruins. Or shadowed forest. The sheer size of the armour made it look inhuman, seemingly too big to be a person.

The simple, heavy cloak had another advantage. It hung low enough to drape over the five five six millimetre, belt fed, light machine gun. Gripped in one power armoured hand.

John felt glad to be finally back out, sending mapping pulses, following a real lead. They’d stopped for a pre-war pouch meal in the forest. Sara exited the power armour gracefully. Lifting herself up and out, as the back plate opened upwards, depressurising with a hiss.

John saw the suit she wore, the one from the funeral. That reminded him of his own vault-suit, which he still wore. He understood the purpose of the metal connecting ports in the complex, form fitting, black and grey outfit.

The brief glimpse inside the armour showed it connected to the suit and the person within at points on every limb. Four on each, more along the sides of the torso.

Even more impressive to John, the armour could still move on its own. John’s first impression had been that it was a robot. He saw this very suit drop from above, crushing a blinded, brutal mutant in front of him. Apparently it could even target and shoot to some degree. And more importantly, walk a wounded, unconscious knight back to base.

He pieced together things from the way she would stop, look, then move on. And from some of the words she used. Enough to realise the helmet had some sort of display system built in. That made him feel better about his own built in display system that still hadn’t shown itself in weeks. Of course she could take hers off.

As they ate the paladin briefed him on his first mission,

“Styx got a tip. Knight Captain Davies, you know him right, lives down the hall, loud, funny.” Sara always told him he knew people he didn’t. Trying subtly to familiarise with new people. John always agreed, although this time he did know the man, he seemed nice enough. “Anyway, Styx got a tip and I volunteered us to check it out. This is pretty much what we do. Someone finds something, mostly Recon, knights secure it, scribes analyse it. We’re going to hold the site till a scribe team gets there, then the birds bring us home.”

“What did the tip say?” He wanted to ask why him, but he didn’t want to appear unsure. She smiled as she gave John the pretty good lasagne she’d only half eaten.

“They found a big, round, metal door, buried in the ground.”

“A Vault?!”

“Assume nothing Initiate Blake.” She used her kill house voice, he welcomed it, keeping his hope in check.

John spent the next few hours trying not to think. Trying not to think about finding another Vault. Trying not to think about Robco’s coded warning. Or that they were too close to Shadowtown for it to have taken a month to arrive. Even with the couriers Sara complained about.

Relief washed over him to finally hear back from his friend. Knowing the coat made it back, knowing they weren’t grieving another man who wore it. The simple note was filled with the wrong details, known only to them both. The older, wiser man stood as one of only two people he trusted implicitly. The other he’d abandoned.

John tried to find a way to quiet his mind. Maybe the Brotherhood weren’t good people, maybe Robco had a run in with those Recon pricks, maybe it didn’t matter. If he got them into a Vault they would be far more interested in the old world tech than him.

He did think Elder Maxwell would keep his word, even if John didn’t trust him. All the rationalising just brought him back to Robco’s words ringing in his ears. You might have to make hard choices, just make sure they’re choices you can live with.

John felt good about his choice to join the Brotherhood, or at least live among them. The punishing training paid off, he felt fitter, sharper. At ease with the rough ground underfoot and the endless blue above.

His crude combat rifle, the rose carved pistol, the bladed hammerhead. His water, ammo, no longer felt like an encumbrance. Even the chaffing at his neck from the rough, pre-war military clothes bothered him less and less. The newly issued polymer combat armour stopped feeling heavy after a mile.

He hadn’t shaved, or cut his dark hair in a month either. His beard looked patchy, his hair still shorter than most. A change however small was still a change, he told himself. Another act of rebellion against the system that enslaved him. A system that enslaved Rosie still.

By mid-afternoon they reached their objective. Far from anything but a nearly lost road. It sat in the footprint of long ruined buildings clustered around a shallow, concrete lined pit. The round metal door in the ground as described and a simple bunker overlooking it.

John looked through binoculars to see a raider gang. Six strong, picking over a looted pile of belongings. The owners of which were stripped, beaten and chained to a rusted girder, four of them.

He watched the raiders tear through their captive’s things. Gleefully drinking their booze. Eating their food. Sadistically firing their own weapons back at them. For no other reason than to laugh at the screams and cries of already broken people.

He glanced over the metal door. It didn’t look like the only other one he’d ever seen, but that wasn’t the priority now. Whatever motivated the Brotherhood to train him didn’t matter. He intended to put it to good use, even if he was ordered not to.

Paladin Maxwell had exited her power armour. Following John quickly and quietly up to the vantage point she trusted him to choose. Lugging the belt fed machine gun almost as easily as her, still active, armour did.

“Report Initiate Blake.”

“Six hostiles, raiders. Crude armour, dirty, wired. Three automatic long guns, one on overwatch, two with shotguns by the hostages.”

“See that bunker with the smoke. That’s a chem lab, volatile, stray shot in there and it goes up. Plus these animals will fight like hell to protect it.” Whatever problem Robco had with these people they shared the same views on raiders, or at least Sara did. “Ideas?” John took back the binoculars. Tamping down the adrenaline with steady breaths, yet keeping it within reach.

“I can take the top of the bunker from behind, quietly. Hit the two by the hostages then cover the last three while you advance up the middle. They’re distracted, I’ll have the sun at my back, and good cover.”

“And I’ll be walking right up the middle getting shot at will I?” Sara smiled, trying to relieve the tension. “Relax, it’s a solid plan.” She looked him in the eye. “We can call for backup, we don’t even…” John felt like he was being tested, it didn’t matter, the answer was the same.

“I’m ready.”

“If it goes bad?”

“Trigger the beacon, meet back here, or where we ate.”

"If you get spotted or there are more hostiles?”

"Go loud, fire and move my way back to you.”

“You have your orders Initiate Blake. Stay quiet, go.”

John moved as he’d been taught, smooth, cover to cover. Suppressed pistol in hand, combat rifle slung across his chest, ready, just in case.

Before long he drew close enough to hear them firing pot shots. Not only wasting ammo, but drawing attention. He reached the remaining wall around the concrete pit. It looked like the round door had been at the bottom of a taller building at some point. Now it and the rubble were all that remained.

He moved as quickly as he darted to cover the open ground behind the sloping bunker. His approach hidden by a solid back wall, unlike the openings on the other side. The air had a noxious tinge. No doubt from the volatile chem lab he drew nearer to with every smooth stride.

He took a moment at the bottom of the steps set into the sloping concrete bunker. Preparing to ascend, hit the target, transition to the rifle, hit two more. He’d done it a thousand times before. At paper and wood not people. No, not people he told himself, animals, preying on people.

Without a hint of anything from the pipboy John climbed the steps, seeing the female raider. Crude armour, spiked hair, sickly, twitching. His foot clipped a chunk of loose rubble and she turned. Her bloodshot eyes widened in realisation just as John fired twice. As he’d been taught. Striking the woman just below the throat, reducing it to red matter in an instant. Suppressing the scream like the muffled crack from his pistol. No louder than the reckless pot shots fired by stupid, undisciplined, sadistic animals.

In a way that reminded him of the kill house, his first real target began to fall from view. John realised why, too late to stop it.

The soil bag wall she leant on crumbled under her dead weight. Simultaneously alerting the remaining hostiles to his presence. While reducing what little cover even the raiders had the sense to prepare. The body hit the hard concrete ten feet below with an unmistakable wet thud. Drawing the attention of all five raiders in an instant.

John’s training gave him just enough time to switch his combat rifle. Kneeling to hit the pair guarding the hostages. Catching the first with a clean headshot, the second with a burst across the chest. Both aimed high to avoid the broken and chained hostages below.

The three better armed raiders took cover. Using stolen guns too good for them. They unleashed a volley of poorly aimed, high calibre, fully automatic fire. Bullets tore through the air. Chipping concrete, zipping to a stop in the bagged dirt. Forcing John’s face down and bringing forth a reaction from the system inside his eyes.

No slowed time, yet, as he stared at the concrete inches from his face, outlines in red of the figures below filled his view. Moving from cover, signalling, reloading. He could see it all. John crawled on his belly, trying not to hear Grimm’s voice.

He used the red outlines the screen inside his eyes showed him to aim then bob up. Firing off the rest of the rifle mag with enough accuracy to give the raiders pause, holding them in the rubble. Then he heard it. And began to understand why Paladin Sara Maxwell of the Brotherhood of Steel had been named for a storm.

Thunderous, steady, mechanical steps echoed through the air and ground alike. Stopping everyone around cold. John couldn’t help himself, he had to look. To see the animals feel the fear they loved to inflict on others. They felt it, all of them. Moving faster than John thought the hulking steel armour could. Glinting in the low sun, Tempest closed the distance to her targets alarmingly fast. The panicked shots that did land sounded like rain on the hangar roof.

John didn’t wait to wonder why she didn’t open fire. He reloaded the rifle faster than he ever had before. Took a deep breath, then crouched over the remaining soil filled bags. John fired. Killing the two nearest raiders with quick bursts to the chest. As they fired pointlessly at the steel storm hurtling towards them.

“Don't shoot! Don't shoot!”

The last raider tossed the empty assault rifle out from his rapidly shrinking cover. The oncoming mechanised feet skidded to a stop right in front him. He knelt, arms raised. Filled with the same terror he’d sadistically inflicted for fun just moments ago.

John wanted to shoot him there and then. Ignoring his begging as he ignored the now even more frightened people chained to the ground.

Tempest raised an open mechanical hand. He mistook it for a friendly gesture, until it clamped around his skull and contracted. Silencing an anguished scream with an audible pop. Followed by a wet slap as she realised her grip, dropping, then splitting the crushed skull on concrete.

An eerie quiet seemed to follow. Then the still active display drew his eyes downwards. Projecting more red outlines moving beneath the concrete he stood on. Four of them.

“Contact!” John yelled, knowing he had to move, and move fast. Tempest levelled the belt fed machine gun. Waiting till the oncoming attackers gathered, foolishly, in the chem lab beneath John’s feet.

A crack of machine gun fire met flesh and hazardous substances. Creating engulfing flames that bellowed through the open windows as John slid down the sloping roof to safety. Feeling the heat as he scrambled away from the unnatural flames. Trying not to breathe the air laced with narcotics and screams loud enough to be heard over the roaring inferno.

He lay on his back, vision clear, trying to shake the explosive shockwave from his body. “John? John?” He heard concern in the modulated, amplified voice of the armoured paladin. He got to his feet as quick as he could. His equilibrium returning rapidly, thanks to Grimm. He made his way round the smoking bunker, waving as he did.

“Front and centre Initiate, double time.” Sara barked. John reloaded, checked his gear and presented himself as he’d been trained. “You good?”

“I’m good, should we cut them loose?” John asked. The chained people were staring at them, more at the armour.

“No, sweep and clear first.” Not needing John’s input the power armoured paladin slung the machine gun. Took off the heavy cloak and walked head long into the burning bunker. Using the cloak, not to mention the size of the steel suit itself to smother the flames.

John tried to smile and wave at the chained people but that only seemed to make things worse. Given the echoing sounds of burnt flesh and bone breaking under mechanised feet.

The fire extinguished, Sara ejected from her armour. Leaving it the light machine gun while drawing one of the twin blades to accompany her lightweight sidearm.

Despite the tension John noticed the short sword. Made from a Vertibird blade. Honed to a fine edge down one side, while keeping the aerodynamic curve along the other. Fitted with a custom handle.

“Take point.”

“Yes sir.”

Initiate Blake took the lead, rose carved pistol drawn, gripped tight. Moving through narrow halls and stacking by doorways till feeling a tap. Then clearing room after room. Aware of the raiders propensity to sleep through just about anything in drug addled near comas.

A mapping pulse gave them the layout. It wasn’t a Vault, far from it. The floor space wouldn’t even account for half a single level. The round, metal door covered a deep, cylindrical shaft. With a handful of small rooms and narrow halls adjoining it. Sara gave him a look like she knew what it was, so he set to the task at hand. Sweep and clear.

He moved slower than in the kill house, finding no further hostiles. A few simple beds. Banks of filing cabinets, old pre-war computers without power. Empty fuel tanks and the raiders haul. Large enough to mean they’d been here a while.

On their way back up top John got a look at the air recirc system. Even if it had been brand new it wouldn’t have come close to what he needed. He tried not to be disappointed, thankful that the practical paladin kept his hopes in check. Still a solid lead, he thought to himself. He’d saved some lives, both today, and going forward.

“Gather the weapons, secure them. Then you need to question the captives.” Sara told him.

“Question them?” John remembered the Brotherhood questioning him not too long ago.

“Find out what they know. Are there more raiders, are slavers coming to buy them, how long have they been here. Whatever you think of, ask.”

“Then what?”

“Make a choice. They could have been the leaders of this gang yesterday, you want to turn them loose to start over?” John hadn’t thought of that. “I’m going to make a sweep, make sure we didn’t disturb anyone, anything, with that little firework display. You hear me shooting, you come running, copy?”

“Solid copy.” Radio code for message received and understood. Even though he had no clue how to talk to the traumatised people.

Numbness crept into John as he set about gathering the automatic weapons. Ignoring the bodies, pushing the smells away. The guns had curved magazines, folding stocks, dark steel and wood. Too good for raiders, clean and in good condition.

He placed them with the others from the looted haul they’d carried up. Remembering the rifle the first raider he killed carried. Which thankfully bounced clear from the splattered body, mostly.

Before retrieving the last two shotguns, John darted into the burnt bunker. He tried to ignore the broken, scorched, smashed bodies. Knowing that grabbing some water and blankets would send a good message.

He approached the chained people as calmly as he could. Throwing them the blankets, rolling them the water bottles from a safe distance. He took the shotguns. Leaving the people a moment to drink and cover themselves. He rounded up the handful of plastic containers of food, snagged an unopened bottle of booze and knelt on the ground. Breathing like Sentinel Grimm taught him without even realising.

Instantly he became calmer, able to see the people, not an objective. Two men, and a young couple. The man beaten severely, the woman vacant, distant.

John took off his rifle, but held his pistol in one hand. Not hiding the fact he’d switched to the compensator so any shots would be heard by his much scarier friend. He slipped his left hand into the sentinel steel knuckles. Partly to imply he might use them, mainly to distract from the odd shape under his sleeve. The pointed steel teeth certainly drew the eye.

After they’d eaten something, drank, and covered themselves, John asked his first question. Grateful for the calm that hid the fear in his voice.

“Is my friend going to find anyone else out there?”

“No you got ‘em all I reckon, thank you.” The man scooped mashed food out the container by hand, starving, shaking.

“How did you get here?”

“We’re traders, they grabbed us from the road last night. Those two are from the next settlement over, grabbed ‘em up a day ago, holding them for ransom.” The young couple hadn’t really moved. Save for pulling a blanket over each other, taking small sips of water through bruised, split lips.

“You were on the road at night?” John felt the people were being honest. They didn’t seem to be sickly like the raiders, just exhausted, in shock. Yet he wanted to do as ordered.

“Yeah, we tried to make Farmborough by dawn, off load the guns we got in Shadowtown.” This time the other trader answered, keen to back up his friend. The guns did look like some he’d seen at the night market.

“Ok sit tight, take this.” He holstered the pistol, stood and handed them the clear booze. Stepping back to prepare his report for the paladin.

“Report.” Paladin Maxwell stood over the pile of guns, away from the people he’d decided to set free.

“The couple are, were, being held for ransom. The other two are traders, took them last night, these are their guns.”

“Makes sense, too good for raiders. Continue.”

“They’re headed to the same place nearby so we can just let them go.” John drove the thought of Robco’s note from his mind. It made no sense to keep these people a minute longer.

“Ok cut ‘em loose. I’m going to take the guns on top of the bunker, they stay clear. We’ll give them back their guns and part as friends.” John got the feeling Sara had a smile on her face inside the armour. Like she’d figured it all out already, and he was just catching up.

“Do you want to break those chains?” John doubted it would take little more than a snap of the mechanised fingers.

“No, you earned that John, get to it.”

John stood over the chained traders. Getting them to use the strength they’d found in being rescued to pull the chains tight. He struck the links with the bladed edge of the hammerhead attached to his multi-tool. Sparks flew, the noise and the realisation jolted the beaten young couple back to the present.

On the third strike he broke the first chain. Two more weighted blows broke the second, freeing them from the girder that held them down.

The traders stretched and paced. Dragging the chains still around their waists till one found his pack, strewn amongst the carnage. John watched him find something that he used to pick the padlocks from them all. Sara sat on top of the bunker, the active armour below, positioned so she could use it to climb down if needed.

John kept watch as the traders collected their things. One treated the young couple with pots of green paste, linen bandages. Powders mixed with water. The other, steering well clear of the armour not to mention its owner, brought the raiders ill-gotten gains up. He started going through the packs. Clothing, food, booze, everything else the animals had taken by force, slowly dressing. Then helping the others dress.

John had orders to move them on, he didn’t know how to begin to do that. Thankfully after an hour, they seemed eager to leave.

With coded hand signals, the paladin instructed John to pile the trader’s guns up. Near the steps that passed as an exit from the ruined structure. He made sure to check he’d placed them in the direction they were heading, just to reinforce his good intentions. They seemed to understand.

As he placed the last rifle down, one of them called out to him. “Hey, hey!” The rescued trader kept a respectful distance. Not afraid, but eager to avoid any misunderstandings. The paladin slid and released the bolt on the light machine gun. The metallic clunk echoing from atop the bunker.

“You take any of them you want son, sir, one for you friend too. Shit you earned it, both of you, thank you, again.” John wondered if that was how he sounded as he thanked his various saviours along the way.

He thought about not taking a rifle. The crude combat rifle got the job done, yet one caught his eye. Seven six two, thirty round mag, the same one he saw Billy put down a mutant with. He took it, taking only a half filled extra magazine. Night was due to fall, and these people had learned not to be on the road at night.

If only to see her laugh, he chose a long barrelled pump action on behalf of the paladin. Knowing it literally wasn’t worth the extra weight to her. Hoping she’d let him keep it so he could customise it. It’s not like the traders could carry it anyway, he thought. Forgetting the inventiveness of necessity. Not noticing the simple cart, crafted from an old bed and pulleys.

The rescued hostages began to leave. As they pulled along the improvised cart, one stopped and approached John, cautiously. Given the active armour a few feet behind him, and its owner above it. Light machine gun cradled in her lap. John looked to his commander, as he’d been trained. She gave a slight nod, and John allowed the grateful trader to approach.

He had a bottle in his hand, light brown whiskey. He didn’t hand it to John. Instead he placed it at the feet of the humming, power armour. Almost bowing to it, to them all, as he did.

It reminded John of the pictures in his history book. Warriors offering gifts, sacrificing goats, to strange statues and totems. Hoping to win favour on the battlefield. John didn’t understand any of that, seemed like a waste of a perfectly delicious goat to him. This however, he understood all too well. Gratitude, mixed with overwhelming relief.

He thought about every insult. Every time a bullet zipped by him in the kill house. Every corrective lap that followed it. Every lonely meal. It felt like a fair price to pay for the pride, confidence, the sound of chains splitting as he struck them. Saving people as he’d been saved.

He covered a surprised laugh with cough as he retrieved the grateful offering from the ground. Knowing his amusement may raise questions. Painted on the bottle, stencilled in red, ‘R’, for Robco. His brand of quality assured whiskey. John couldn’t wait to tell his friend about today.