The highest of the low drain activity she could think of had to be exercise. Rosie headed back in grabbing her neon pink, canvas and rubber soled shoes. She kept a steady pace till hitting the treeline, then pushed on harder. Rosie weaved through the trees while keeping her pace. She could feel the dreamlike state scratching at the surface, primed and ready. Not yet, she thought, slowing to a walk.

At the back of the lighthouse Rosie began her breathing and poses, holding each position till it hurt, stretching every muscle fully. Rosie saved fight practice till last. Charlie’s and Matt’s injuries meant she hadn’t sparred properly in weeks. Still, her kicks remained smooth, her form tight, her axe strikes lethal.

Inside Rosie added the data to the handwritten chart, using different colours just because she could. Laughter and footsteps echoed up the stairs, the sound of warm insults and false complaints. Matt came up first, excited to see Rosie drawing then shifting awkwardly as he saw what she’d been working on. His awkwardness made her feel the same.

“Want some breakfast?” Rosie shouted over to Paul. He nodded and she slipped away from the benches, leaving the tension. Rosie served the second thing she’d cooked in her life. Paul took the plate of three light brown, perfectly round pancakes, and held it up to the light, turning and inspecting. Rosie found herself oddly nervous. Paul cut a piece free and ate it, chewing slowly.

“Perfect.” Paul threw back the coffee as Rosie failed at hiding her excitement. “Next time though, let Janey make the coffee.”

“Deal.” Rosie took that as a win.

Rosie spent the next hour going through the wooden crates. She’d been left half of everything. Two full sets of riot armour. Four grenade launchers, with smoke, flashbang, and tear gas rounds. And four riot shotguns, drum mags and fully automatic. She scanned it all, viewing cross sections, diagrams and exploded views inside her eyes.

After putting the riot gear away, for now, Rosie moved onto the power armour. T-60, broad shoulder plates, legs like tree trunks, and fists the size of her head. A cold shudder ran through her at the thought of being entombed inside a steel, person shaped box.

Then another at the thought of these being used to break up a riot. Like the one I started, she thought, hearing the clatter of metal batons against plastic shields. Good, they needed a wake up call. Rosie drove thoughts of all she’d ever known away, although part of her worried about her friend Dutch. And what John would say.

The analysis of the two dull green sets of power armour provided a wealth of data. Rosie had dismissed them as slow, lumpen things. Yet beneath the steel plate lived a network of finely made actuators, intricate gearing, miles of tightly bound cable, and a robust operating system. Like the sinew, muscle, and brain of the eight foot, steel, man shaped machine. Her new found apperception did not help Rosie pick between the two, even the serial numbers were close together.

“Just pick one.” Charlie appeared behind her, coffee in hand and silk robe still on. “Unless you want me to do it.”

“Yes, please.” Rosie felt glad to have Charlie’s input. She’d worn armour and an R frame. Rosie’s hope for a valid reason soon vanished as Charlie produced a cap.

“Heads.” And with that Charlie flicked the cap up with her thumb, then plucked it from the air as it span. She lowered her close fist so Rosie could see then opened it to reveal the red side of the cap. “That one.” Charlie tapped the helmet with her knuckle twice with an echoing ding.

“That’s not very scientific.” Rosie hoped to get a valid reason but got only a laugh.

“You read the note right?” Charlie asked.

“One of them stays whole, and I make the other one look like that.” Rosie pointed to the R frames hung at the opposite end of the benches that belonged to Matt and Charlie.

“Power armour without the armour.” Charlie sounded almost excited as she stared over at the black steel exoskeletons. “Better get to it.”

“I will, but,” Rosie tapped her hand drawn chart, then went back to her schedule.

Outside, the whirring stomp of the power armour followed Rosie as she walked. She could feel the vibrations through her feet as she kept pace. When Rosie had used the remote override on Janey, she’d been operating on adrenaline and instinct. Now she watched with keen eyes as the code spread into the power armour operating system.

The code infiltrated and replicated, as it must have done with Janey, implanting commands and adding to existing functions. Rosie looked through the optical sensors first. A grainy image appeared in the corner of her vision, blocks for the environment in monochromatic green.

It paled in comparison to Janey’s vision, that matched Rosie’s, even the cameras built into the Velo were better than this. Its auto targeting worked on movement, engaging if it detected incoming fire. Good enough to keep a watch perhaps but little else. Rosie found a feature that Janey lacked, for now. Mimic.

She engaged the mimic protocol. The armour shunted and clunked, repositioning its massive weight. It now copied her movements, she ran, it ran. She punched, it punched. She threw out a strong front kick, the armour did too. And with a great deal more force. She could give it direct commands. Go here, wait there, lift this or that. Then could parse the commands into subroutines. Rosie’s mind raced with possibilities.

She spent the rest of that hour practising moving with the armour. Using it as rolling cover, getting it to crouch and then stand, seeing how fast it could move. Strangely, considering the armour almost had a face, hands, arms and legs, it felt like an ‘it’. Janey felt like a her, even the technophobic Matt called her that. Personality, Rosie thought, admiring Janey’s conversational programming all the more.

The last activity for the middle of Rosie’s experiment involved direct override of Janey. Rosie knew the others didn’t like to see her slumped, not moving, almost like sleeping with her eyes open. She went into the washroom and turned on the shower, angling the head away and sitting on a plastic chair.

From the outside Rosie seemed still, the slight movements of her fingers and the flickering of her eyes the only sign. Janey had just started her patrol when Rosie patched in.

“Janey, we’re going to try a new route.” Rosie whispered, her instructions crystal clear to Janey thanks to the subdermal mic in her throat.

“Confirmed.” Rosie directed Janey on a new route, now just beyond the perimeter. “Admin Rosie, this is where I have seen deer on fourteen separate occasions.” Rosie stopped Janey walking as the robotic head panned right round.

She wondered for a moment why Janey had mentioned it, and found that each of the previous sightings had been logged and saved. Rosie waited till Janey reacted. “Perhaps we will have more luck on the next cycle.” Rosie guided Janey along the rest of the new patrol route, ensuring that it met with the automated precision that Janey ran on.

By the time Janey clanked back inside Rosie had enough data on the drain rate of direct override, yet spent the rest of the hour fully immersed. Janey navigated the stairs to the private Vault below with ease, entering through the door Rosie opened. She felt her breath and pulse quicken, the fear bypassing Janey completely.

Inside the pre-war lounge looked more lived in. The furniture rearranged, five stools pulled up to the bar, five more seats clustered around a table nearby. Five, not four, Rosie noticed. Did they think I’d go down there? Rosie continued her remote exploration, finding the long kitchen cleaner than ever and the gym in a state of disarray.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“Rosie?” Brandon asked as he entered the hall. He’d been in the lower level, the one that showed this place for what it truly was.

“How did you know?” Rosie answered through Janey.

“Well our metal friend doesn’t really stand at odd angles doing nothing. We noti—”

“Notice things. I remember.” Rosie had started to find the eye for behaviour that the others had. “I’m going to need to change cores today. I thought we could do it together, all of us. Like training.” Rosie thought Brandon would like that suggestion.

“Good, let us know when.” Brandon’s calm helped Rosie feel the same.

Rosie took a break and actually showered, leaving Janey to help Paul in the kitchen. She updated the paper chart with the figures of the last three hours and then set out on the high drain activities.

Rosie sat on the couch in her underwear, pulling the stealth suit on. The hexagonal material remained stiff until on and powered, which meant stepping into the moulded feet and tugging. Like peeling a blood orange in reverse. Once Rosie had one shoulder in, the other followed easily enough.

Her skin tingled as the faint charge began to surge through the suit. Hexagons slotted into place across her torso, blue light pulsing in geometric lines up the side of her chest as the suit joined.

Rosie forced deep breaths into her lungs to ease the stiffness in the suit, then followed that with a few press ups and stretches. With the suit warmed up, Rosie tested the functions she’d added to the sleeve. Touching the sleeve and holding the three specific hexagonal cells in opened a line along the underside of the pipboy, allowing access to swap out the core. It’s not going to come to that, Rosie told herself, finding solace in the extra core and hand grenade at her feet. Rosie threw them in her pack, already thinking of a better way to store them.

Rosie sat back down loading magazines with half of the ammo she’d bought. As she bagged up a pistol, shotgun, and suppressed carbine, a wave of unexpected tiredness hit her. I’ll bring Janey.

Rosie lay on her cloak, trying not to bump the antique sniper rifle resting on its bipod as she yawned. An hour ago she hadn’t felt tired. The makeshift range ended at around two hundred metres, it almost seemed insulting to shoot a weapon this fine at that distance.

Rosie tightened her grip with one hand and slid the well made bolt back, releasing it with a snap. Aiming quickly, Rosie fired, managing the kick and listening. The rounds worked as advertised, reducing the speed of the bullet and the sound it made. She fired two more to get an average reading and saved the rest.

Next she stood, cloak draped over her shoulders. It didn’t impede her movement as she fired the pistol, putting hollow points through tin cans filled with earth. Each of the rounds expanded on impact, revealing sharp points and jagged edges. If Matt had been hit with these he’d be dead, she thought, moving her boot so the token of thanks behind the laces glinted in the afternoon sun.

Unlike the hollow points, the custom shotgun shells expanded in flight. The first shot missed, so she pulled the charging handle back and slid in another through the ejection port. This time she calculated the shot with the targeting protocol. The seemingly solid slug peeled open in flight, morphing into a pointed, spinning star. She pried it loose from the tree with her knife, it looked like it could take off an arm.

Rosie hung the scrap steel plate as if she wanted to protect the tree. Impacts pinged off metal as a burst of armour piercing rounds from the carbine hit. Rosie had her doubts, not least about the ghoul, but the steel had divots in it, with holes. Behind the plate the tungsten pins within the bullets had splintered wood and bored in. Rosie used her axe to hack at the wood, pulling out twisted metal to use again. Using the slowed time and the targeting protocol brought a drop, although less than she expected.

Rosie dropped the guns back in the cellar, grabbing her knives. She kept a fast pace alongside the stream, rocks clacking and her cloak billowing. The weight of the cloak kept it in place, even with the straps undone.

The stream rippled by, the wind ruffled the trees in the distance. Rosie tuned in to everything around her, then bolted. The cloak hung in the air as if she still wore it, water arced, crested, and fell in her wake. The suit cut through the stream as she ran after the knife she’d thrown fractions of a second earlier.

Objects in motion, she thought as the knife took effort to grab from the air. She turned and hurled it in another direction, the flowing water providing more resistance with every step. The knife began to accelerate away from her outstretched fingers. It took a moment for her to realise why she had slowed.

Time snapped back as Rosie staggered through the ankle deep water and rolled onto the bank. “Fuck you Newton.” Rosie panted, cursing the laws of motion that always pushed back when provoked.

Rosie got to her feet, brushing off the sand and grit. She’d pushed too hard, moved too fast and lost her footing. Not good enough. After shaking off the bone jarring impact Rosie tried again. This time she built slower, then pushed harder and faster, her mind clear and pace steady.

Instead of waiting for the dreamlike state to end, Rosie tried to shut it down, like landing the parachute. The slowed time sped back up as Rosie kept her pace, and stayed upright. Rosie could hear her heart beating, she lent against and tree to rest, only then realising she’d reached the treeline. Moving in the dreamlike state proved to be a bigger drain than she’d thought.

Rosie threw her cloak back on, disappointed in herself at getting it wet and covered in dirt. At the door to the cellar Rosie heard Matt talking. She had to stifle a laugh as she heard who he was talking to. Janey. Rosie pulled the hood up, brought the orange face plates together and breathed out sharply as the suit pressurised. She tilted and stretched her neck, then engaged the stealth field. She couldn’t see her own hand in front of her face, only a shimmer in the air.

Touching the metal door broke the field around her hand. Conductivity? Rosie thought, having given up on the research about the suit after struggling to grasp the first page. The door let out the tiniest of creaks as she inched it open just enough to slip through.

“Atmospheric predictions indicate optimal conditions Matthew. I will keep you updated.” Janey began to clank right towards the door.

“Thanks Janey.” Matt went back to checking his gear. “See any stags today?” He called out. Janey stopped and turned her head nearly right the way round.

“I did not. Perhaps we will have better luck tomorrow.” Janey began clanking forward again, right at Rosie. She softly stepped aside without sound and waited for her to pass.

Rosie began to feel uneasy. She thought Matt would have spotted the faint shimmer moving through the room by now. Privacy had been something Rosie learned only months ago, and she’d embraced it fully. Yet now it felt like a violation to be in the room without Matt knowing.

Taking the opportunity to gather data, Rosie slipped into the dreamlike state and ran. The stealth field fell away like broken glass and she reached the metal door in less than a second. Rosie clattered through and time snapped back.

“You know it opens quietly right.” Matt sounded annoyed, loud noises were almost as unacceptable here as in the field.

“Sorry.” Rosie’s muffled voice drew Matt away from cleaning his sidearm. The hood and visor dampened her voice so much she almost had to shout.

“Were you…” Matt stopped before asking. Rosie couldn’t read his face. “In here?”

“If I was?” Rosie hoped that Matt wouldn’t feel spied on.

“Then he’d be impressed.” Brandon walked up from the stairs, dressed in his long coat, jeans and a shirt. “Show me.” Rosie hesitated for a moment, almost silently apologising to Matt, then vanished.

The next thirty minutes turned into a game. Brandon and Matt would watch and call out where they thought Rosie stood, getting it right around half the time. The trick seemed to be slow movements, edging around things, and not touching metal.

“Core check.” Brandon ordered.

“Thirteen.” Rosie quickly added the last dataset she needed to her chart. That felt better than looking at the worried faces in the room. “I’m ready.” Brandon gave Matt a nod and he went below to get Paul and Charlie.

“Coffee?” Brandon asked casually, projecting calm.

“Sure.” Rosie sat at the table and waited, not touching her coffee.

Everyone sat at the kitchen table, forced smiles, tapping fingers and shaking legs. Even Paul’s tall white hat failed to get its usual laughs. Brandon gave Rosie a nod.

“Alright.” Rosie shifted her weight to extend her arm across the table. “Holding these three cells will open the sleeve.” Rosie prompted Charlie to press the hexagons at her wrist. Blue light pulsed between the cells and the sleeve separated with a hiss. The glossy sheen of the suit looked at odds with the finish of the pipboy housing it revealed.

Rosie activated the core change protocol, beginning to draw a residual charge and retracting a panel she’d never seen open before. The yellow core seemed almost benign. “On my mark you need to pull the core and slot the fresh one in.”

“On my mark.” Rosie tried to keep the fear from her voice as the residual charge meter filled. “Now!” Charlie levered the core free and Rosie immediately slumped in her chair, pulling her arm away from Charlie. Rosie felt like she’d fallen into deep water, shivering, twitching, her limbs heavy and her mind clouded.

With the hard earned calm of paramedic, Charlie yanked Rosie’s arm back round and slammed in the fresh core. Nothing happened.

“Rosie! Talk to me, Rosie.” Charlie held her head while Rosie grunted, unable to do anything more. Rosie pawed across the open housing, trying to communicate the only way she could. “Got it!” Charlie twisted the core, feeling the power surge through it.

“Fuck!” Rosie jumped to her feet, the cloudiness gone from her mind and the lethargy that clung to her all day shaken off. “I-feel-fucking-great! Oh-man-this-feels-so-much-better!” Rosie blurted the words out too fast, pacing back and forth, just short of jogging.

“Tornado, core check.” Brandon’s order brought her a moment of focus.

“Ninety one.” Rosie started throwing punches into nothing, then kicks, then folded into a handstand which quickly became one handed. “You’re heading out right?” Rosie still spoke too fast. “I’ll come, I mean can I come? Please?” Rosie didn’t wait for an answer from the concerned faces. “What am I saying, I can’t go anywhere, I’ve got too much to do. Lots to do.” Rosie grabbed one of the riot helmets and started disassembling it. Then quickly tossed the mask and helmet aside, starting on the bladed Assaultron arm.

“Is she ok?” Brandon leant in and half whispered to Charlie. He didn’t need to, Rosie had already made a start on another project, after starting two already.

“Right now she’s like a kid who ate a full box of Sugar Bombs, but it could get a little…” Charlie didn’t want to say it, none of the connotations were good.

“Manic.” Brandon said it for her.

“You two need to relax.” Paul stood, not wanting to hear anymore. “So she’s got a little extra fuel in the tank, just needs burning off is all. Rosie?” She turned from the rapidly spreading chaos of the workbench. “Grab your padded gloves, let’s go work off that cake. We don’t want you getting fat.” Paul puffed out his cheeks and waddled to amuse her, Rosie giggled and bounded up the stairs two at a time.

“It’s not easy for him to hear that.” Charlie offered neither excuse nor apology. “Not after his brother.”