Chapter 25 “This is like the shadow of what I see.”

The walk home from Bakersfield turned into a pleasant afternoon. Paul and Rosie stole sweetrolls from the pack stuffed with baked goods. Charlie and Brandon mocked Matt for sleeping with someone he’d rescued, something apparently unseemly.

“I’d never sleep with a patient, that’s all I’m saying.” Charlie continued the light hearted ribbing.

“Remind me how you and Paul met?” Matt countered perfectly, amusing everyone as they wound their way through the forest.

“That’s different.” Charlie answered.

“How?!” Matt’s indignation brought only laughter. Charlie’s lack of a response brought more.

“Either way, it’s very poor form Matthew. Wouldn’t you agree Rosie?” Brandon tried to pull her into the game.

“I think they’re good together.” A sense that Rosie didn’t understand the game spread. It didn’t last. “Plus he’s less likely to get shot while baking.” Everyone laughed, making the journey easier.

Once they were within a mile of the lighthouse the stories and banter stopped. The team separated and became silent, advancing tactically towards their home. Brandon gave the all clear and they headed in. He collapsed onto the couch and took a fresh cigar from his coat.

“No.” Charlie snatched it from his mouth and started listing illnesses while he grabbed at it.

“Rosie, can you help me with something?” Matt asked.

“Sure.” Rosie hadn’t slept for two days but she didn’t feel tired.

They walked to a spot in the forest just past the range, joined by Brandon a short time after. “I need you to dig.” Matt handed her a shovel and pointed to recently disturbed earth. “It’s not deep.” Rosie started digging and found it harder than expected.

“You know there’s more than one shovel in existence right.” Rosie’s sarcasm brought a smile to the other two.

“Technically you should have buried it too so I don’t think we should push it.” Matt tried to be apologetic. Brandon handed her water, he held the cigar in his mouth then flicked open his knife. The dark alloy looked different, brighter, covered in waves of yellow and red. Brandon touched it to the end of the cigar and began puffing smoke.

“Neat trick right. Had Janey zap it, stays hot for hours.” He retracted the blade into the handle and tossed it to Rosie. He’d added leather to the steel block handle and it felt warm to the touch. “A month or so from now that’ll make a great hand warmer.” Rosie didn’t quite understand. “Because it’ll be winter and colder.”

“Right, yeah, I remember.” Rosie had completely forgotten.

“Don’t forget the rains. I swear it rained for two weeks straight last year.” Matt sounded annoyed by the rain already. “And it’s toxic so you can’t be out in it for more than a day.”

“How do you run operations if you can’t go outside?” Rosie had little concern. I could probably shower in it, she thought.

“Well, we scale things back.” Brandon answered between chomping at the cigar and blowing smoke. “After the harvest so does everyone else. Fewer traders on the road, fewer contracts to take. This year’ll be easier though, now we’ve got private bedrooms.” Brandon gave her a nod of gratitude that Matt followed. Rosie smiled and accepted the gesture she’d hardly done anything to earn.

The shovel skipped on something hard and Matt sprang to his feet. Rosie looked at what she’d uncovered, unable to place the black texture. “Wait, is this a radscorpion?”

“Just the carapace and the pincers.” Matt looked almost giddy. “I butchered the one you killed, milked the venom, saved you the barb too. Best way to clean it is to bury it. All the tiny bugs feed off the insides and leave the chitin clean.” Matt took the shovel from her. “Now you’ve uncovered it, I can help you.” Rosie looked confused.

“Should have warned you Rosie, Matthew loves bugs.” Brandon beckoned her over to sit on a log with him. “Wanted to keep one as a pet once.”

“I didn’t want it as a pet.” Matt stopped digging and looked to Rosie, hoping the craftswoman would understand. “I wanted to keep one alive for a few weeks so the chitin would harden and the venom glands would enlarge.” A few more shovel strokes brought a smile to Matt’s face as he levered free a plate from the scorpion’s back.

“Strong as steel and a third of the weight.” A solid thunk came from the chitin plate as Matt knocked on it. Rosie held the clean, natural armour, impressed not only with the evolution of the creature, but the very idea of harvesting it in the first place.

“Sometimes the old ways are the best.” Brandon took the chitin and knocked on it, repeating the phrase he often used. “Speaking off, next time you run into one of those things try a bottlecap mine.”

“What’s a…” Rosie took an educated guess. “Tin can, explosives, caps and a trigger.”

“Pretty much yeah, although lunchboxes work best.” Rosie didn’t know what a lunchbox was, but it gave her an idea all the same.

A long shower, a light meal, and a good night's rest, helped Rosie think. She went through her routine of exercise, shadow boxing and swordplay. She even found time for a little archery practice. It still felt strange somehow, but Rosie persevered

Inside she found Brandon and Charlie at the table, one timing the other, while they assembled something blindfolded. Charlie aimed the reassembled carbine at the ceiling and pulled the trigger to make it click.

“Time!” Charlie pulled the bandanna from her eyes, grinning. She slammed the table with her hand as Brandon told her how long she’d taken. “Hot damn! New personal best.”

“Can I try?” Rosie knew she could beat that time. She did, but not by much.

“Try this.” Brandon put the blindfold on. He brought out a round plastic tub, popped the lid off, and laid out a small tube and spool. Next he twisted the tight fitting top from a small canister, unfurling the coiled film. “Relax, it’s a practice strip.” Even blindfolded he picked up on Rosie’s concern. Within seconds he slid the end of the film onto the spool, twisting one side to coil it up. He slid it over a little tube and back into the tub.

“No problem.” Rosie’s confidence didn’t last. First she couldn’t open the film canister, then dropped it, and started pawing at the floor to find it. She did, then struggled to get the punched holes in the film to catch on the spool. She touched the film, cracked and twisted it, as she worked the spool too fast.

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“Fucking stupid old world crap!” Rosie didn’t like being bad at things, this had rankled her.

“Lay out the pieces and do it without the blindfold.” Rosie did as Brandon instructed. “Slowly, put them together.” Rosie ran through the process until she could do it blindfolded, literally. Then it occurred to her why, and what she had to do next.

Rosie followed Brandon down to the private Vault. Through the luxurious lounge and into the cold metal corridors she knew all too well. The narrow storage room, the one bigger than the room she’d lived in for a decade, had been lit with red bulbs. The shelving had been rearranged to create a high work surface. A water butt sat at one end, with three plastic trays next to it. Rosie looked at the contraption that looked like a projector stood on side, the light shining on a cutting board from the kitchen.

“Shut the door.” Brandon had a firm tone, Rosie didn’t need to turn around to hit the button, even in the low light. The fear Rosie had to control burst out faster than the door slid shut. “Breathe.” Brandon changed his own breathing, getting Rosie to do the same. “Fear will keep you sharp, keep you moving, keep you fighting. Fear is not the enemy.” Brandon clicked a switch and the low red lights vanished. Instantly Rosie’s sense of falling into the dark pushed her into the dreamlike state. Rapid blinks tried to activate her night vision, nothing happened.

Suddenly Rosie felt seven years old again, a frightened child alone in the dark. The power went out often on the family deck, lights would go out and doors would lock. A minor inconvenience to John. His loving, attentive father would follow procedure, open the doors manually and use battery lights. Rosie’s solvent addled excuse for a mother usually slept right through them.

After one that lasted hours, John found her crying the next day and she told him why. Rosie never found herself alone in the dark for more than five minutes from that day on. John and his father would always come for her. She’d have gone back to the Vault gladly for John to open the door and shine a torch in her eyes at that very moment.

An odd sensation began to creep into Rosie’s eyes. She couldn’t be sure if they were open or closed, until she felt tears begin to fall slowly down her face. The system brought up options for her, it looked exactly like a terminal screen, green code on black. The first and most obvious option was the screen light, or visible light from the halogen led torch.

Next the torch could emit infrared light for her night vision, or she could activate thermal vision and pick out Brandon. And last, a wire frame overlay extrapolated from mapping data. She knew that choosing them would defeat the purpose of the lesson. Time snapped back as the options brought a moment of respite from paralysing fear.

“Why can’t you see?” Brandon asked, giving her mind something to focus on.

“No light to amplify.” Rosie clung the fleeting sense of calm like a rope. “I’m ok.”

“Fear is not the enemy.”

After what felt like hours, Brandon clicked the red lights on. He poured a mixture from a corrugated bottle into the plastic tub, instructing Rosie to swirl it for ten seconds every minute.

“You know this is the sort of thing Janey would like.” Rosie didn’t lie, not exactly.

“She knows how to develop film.” Brandon didn’t turn from his pouring as Rosie bit her tongue to keep from asking why she was doing it.

“Wait, this tank is lightproof, I could do this outside.”

“Took you long enough. Go on up if you want.” Brandon gave her the option to leave without expressing a preference.

“No, it’s just a few minutes.” Rosie wanted to leave, to run into daylight, she didn’t.

“It’ll be worth it.” Brandon glanced at the clock, hands glowing green, and waited.

“Put this on.” Brandon tossed her an oversized smock made from a tattered bedsheet, splashed with light brown stains. Rosie poured out the developing fluid, mixed and added the stop fluid, then swapped that for the fixer fluid. Finally leaving the container to rinse with water.

A few, long minutes later Brandon freed the film from the spool and hung it from the string loop on the ceiling. He ran sponge down it, making a teeth grinding squeak that made him laugh. He cut the film into short strips, showing Rosie the negative image, the light dark and the dark light.

Brandon placed a strip of glossy paper on the cutting board, then placed the negatives and piece of glass over that. He flicked the light on the sideways projector on, blocking parts of the strip with a piece of card at measured intervals. Rosie couldn’t see clearly what he did next as Brandon hid it from her.

“This one.” He placed a strip of film in a slot on the projector, enlarging an image onto the cutting board for thirty seconds. “Put it in there, and rock it back and forth.”

Rosie slid the blank paper into the clear liquid and rocked the tray gently. A strange sense of excitement built as the chemical reaction began. She’d seen photographs, she’d read and understood the chemistry, yet seeing a stolen moment emerge from a blank rectangle almost made her cry.

“What’s that word?” Rosie always felt comfortable asking Brandon these sorts of questions. “Things that aren’t possible, like you can’t explain them.”

“Magic?”

“That’s it. Magic.”

After putting the picture she’d taken through two more trays, and leaving it for what felt like longer than a few minutes, Brandon let her take it into the light. She tried not to run as she left the steel corridor, and struck a compromise by going into the kitchen off the lounge.

“You have a good eye.” Brandon never offered false praise but Rosie couldn’t take her eyes from the picture. She’d taken little more than a snapshot as they sat down on the balcony at the bakery. Now as she looked at the frozen image details leapt out at her.

The door frame showed as a dark border, Paul’s broad build caught as a silhouette against the morning sun. Charlie had just seen him, and despite being together for the last few hours, Rosie saw relief and gratitude that the land mine hadn’t gone off. Brandon had just lit a cigar, holding it between smiling teeth, as Matt realised he had purple cake mix on his face transferred from close contact with a woman he’d saved.

“Thank you.” Rosie thought it almost worth the fear. She decided to tell Brandon about power cuts in the Vault, once he’d met John.

“I’ll have Janey print up the rest and you can start a model.” Brandon brought her back to the reason for learning to print pictures in the first place.

“I don’t need them for the model, the pictures are mostly for you and the others.” Brandon looked unsure for a moment. “Mark two eyeball.” Rosie tapped her temple.

“Sometimes I wish I could see what you see.” Brandon looked at her eyes, not in them.

“See what I see…” Rosie turned from Brandon, her fingers scrolling through menus in her eyes. “Sorry, can I…”

“By all means.” Brandon smiled and watched Rosie leave, only for her head to reappear through the door.

“Is there any of that heavy paper?”

“Cardboard Rosie.” Brandon shook his head and rummaged through a cupboard, pulling out a thick brown box of tin cans.

“And those little fire sticks?”

“Matches.” He tossed Rosie a box from his pocket, his preferred method for lighting cigars. “Don’t waste those.” She didn’t hear him.

Rosie spent most of her day on her model. First rendering the virtual one while pretending to sleep, for the benefit of others. In the afternoon she created a cardboard copy, keeping the scale, using matches pushed in for targets. Janey arrived with the photographs and Rosie transferred her model to the floor, laying them in a semicircle. At Paul's suggestion she waited till after everyone ate to start.

“If you don’t think it’ll work, give it to the Brotherhood. The only thing that matters is they're taken off the board.” Rosie crouched on the opposite side of the model to everyone else, ready for the questions.

“Lot of moving parts.” Brandon didn’t say no.

“Everyone has cover, everyone has an exfil.” Rosie moved the bullets that represented each of them through the phases again.

“Don’t be fooled by the lack of discipline. They were military long before they had more combat experience than us combined. First bullet fired in anger and they’ll snap to.” Paul had seen them up close.

“We’d have the initiative, they aren’t expecting us. Knowing they’ll react hard works for us and against them.” Rosie knew the Red Hand were tough, and she also knew how arrogant they were. “‘All warfare is based on deception’” Rosie quoted the book Brandon gave her.

“Is that from that dumb book?” Charlie scoffed.

“It’s not a dumb book.” Rosie and Brandon said the same thing at the same time.

“Is there anything we’d need?” Brandon asked.

“Cigarettes, pre-war.” Matt’s request seemed odd to Rosie.

“I wouldn’t mind an lmg to keep me company. Something loud and fast.” Charlie’s request made more sense.

“I’m not going to order anyone on this, it’s a risk.” Brandon gathered up a few photos, using a magnifying glass. “...at the very least we give them a bloody nose.”

“Fucking Filth ain’t got noses Boss.” Charlie looked to Paul, they agreed. “We’re a go.”

“Andrea…” Matt looked to Rosie, almost asking permission. “She told me about them.” Matt knew the cruelty of slavers long before saving Andrea and Rosie. “I’m in.” Rosie stood, knowing the risks were far greater for them. She glanced across the model one last time.

“Sometimes the old ways are the best.” Rosie didn’t understand why that made them laugh.

“Rosie, your plan involves a robot, that’s not an old way.” Brandon set down the pictures and began to highlight sections with a grease pencil. “Get started on floor plans.”

“Yeah about that. Put those on and get the lights.” Again Rosie found herself in darkness, this time at her request, and only for an instant. “Janey, display.” A faint whir came from Janey as her head angled down onto the floor.

“Son of a bitch.” Brandon clicked on the goggles stripped from the riot helmet.

“I recalibrated Janey’s map to display in infrared, then I scaled it up.” The wire frame model Rosie built for herself became visible. Three times larger than the cardboard one, able to display any level, to turn and zoom. “Janey, show me the trajectory from Charlie’s position to a target on the roof.”

“Confirmed.” An extra beam cut across the projected model. “Relative distance is eleven hundred twenty three metres.”

“She can work as a spotter.” Charlie sounded impressed.

“And I can transpose it to the goggles to give you something to aim at.” Rosie put a blip into the goggles to demonstrate.

“Is this what you see?” Brandon whispered to her.

“This is like the shadow of what I see.”