Chapter 8 “No number. They always have a number.”
South of Shadowtown, Rosie stared across a broad expanse of land. Flat and open, a single road leading straight through the middle to a square building on the horizon. She tensed at the thought of walking down it, exposed like that. She couldn’t tell if her training or her life prior to a month ago made her so uneasy in such a wide open space.
Fortunately they turned to head south east. Into the red forest, with the afternoon sun flickering through the canopy. The three made good time. They switched back to tactical movement and hand signals after getting away from Shadowtown.
“I’m gonna double back, check we're not being followed.” Charlie said as they stopped in a clearing to hydrate.
“Negative Whirlwind. Tornado, you’re up.” Rosie looked to Charlie who managed to hold her protests at Brandon’s order. “Sweep back—”
“Stay quiet, sit tight, see if anyone is tracking us. Look for any signs of hostiles.” Rosie wanted to get this right. Brandon nodded and off she went, keeping a distance from the route they’d taken, moving slow and quiet.
Her eyes scanned the ground for signs of disturbance, her ears attuned to the sounds of movement. Waiting silently in the shadow of a tree, Rosie heard little beyond the rustling burrowing sounds. And the occasional flapping and the darting black shapes of the birds.
The forest began to thin and the reason for extra caution became clear. The ground fell away to either side leaving a spit of grass covered land. At the end stood an old building. Round and tall, topped with windows set in tarnished brass. It looked old even for the old world.
“What is this place?” Rosie asked in an almost childlike tone.
“Home.” Charlie answered, her relief apparent. The word meant little to Rosie but a great deal more to her companions.
“It’s an old lighthouse.” Brandon said as they walked closer. “This whole area used to be a massive lake. Before the world switched to trains and roads they moved cargo by ship.” Rosie looked out over the dried lakebed. Little more than a shimmering stream now, jagged rocks below now exposed to the air.
“Someone turned it into a home years later, preserved the building before the bombs fell. I found it, must be, four years ago now. Clean water nearby, good soil, plenty of escape routes. And one man with a rifle could hold off a battalion from up there.” Sadness crept into Brandon’s voice. “I hoped Clarke and Sara would join us here.”
“They may yet.” Charlie tried to lift Brandon’s spirits.
“Either way there’s plenty of space,” He looked Rosie in the eye. “And there’s a place for you too. And John. No matter what.”
“Thank you. It’s beautiful here.” Rosie didn’t know what else to say.
“Well you haven’t seen the inside yet.” Charlie smiled, lifting the mood. “It needs a lot of work.”
Inside the round lighthouse metal stairs spiralled up the wall. The brass bannister glinted in the light coming through the holes in the outer wall. Debris littered the floor of the seemingly abandoned structure.
“It really does need a lot of work.” The others laughed but Rosie didn’t understand why. She followed as they headed for the stairs, heading down instead of up. Rosie became hesitant as the thought of being underground again began to frighten her. At the bottom Charlie shoved at a ruined bookcase, moving it aside. She unlocked a metal door secured by a heavy chain and a padlock. Rosie hesitated.
“It’s not what you think Rosie. Trust me.” Brandon held out his hand and she took it, trying to keep from freezing at the thought of being underground.
Beneath the lighthouse had once been a natural cave. The same grey and off white stone mined out into a large rectangular room with a high ceiling. Plush leather seating around a fire pit with a brushed aluminium extractor built in the base. A kitchen area to one side with carved wooden chairs and a polished table. It reminded Rosie of the luxurious level one in the Vault. The others stayed quiet and gave Rosie space to adjust.
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She ran her hand along the wall, finding the rock coated in something that gave it a smooth finish and kept it from chipping. Simple beds and workbenches had been brought in. Rosie saw tools and weapons she knew alongside a set of T-60 power armour. Dinged and dented, marked to indicate what she assumed were kills.
The system told them what it was, yet nothing about a pair of stripped down sets hung next to it. Not spares or broken, they looked combat ready. Like the armour, only missing the armour. Pistons and actuators along the limbs. Metal that enclosed the wearer’s feet and attachments that provided vice like grips for the hands. All painted black.
“They’re like powered exoskeletons.” Rosie almost forgot she’d gone back underground, fascinated with the mechanical apparatus.
“Recon frames. Lets us run faster, jump higher, hit harder.” Charlie smiled. “This one’s mine, that one’s Matt’s.”
“Only two?” Rosie asked, secretly hoping there might be another one for her.
“What do you make of that?” Brandon pointed to a copper coil mounted into a fusion core generator. Rosie stood quietly thinking, enjoying the puzzle before her.
“It charges the copper to produce a magnetic field that…” Between the system in her head and her time in the repair shop Rosie understood nearly everything in the room. Even the small arsenal of high end guns. “So you can superheat metal and work it.” Rosie didn’t ask if she got that right, she had.
“An induction forge.” Brandon looked pleased to see Rosie’s mind at work. “And that isn’t even the most interesting thing in here.”
“There'll be time for all that. You need to rest, we all do.” Charlie motioned towards the beds in one corner, sheets hung to give a little privacy. Rosie didn’t want to think about waking up without a window to look out of. Not again. Never again. she told herself.
“Let's eat and see how we feel.” Brandon sounded like he’d compromised, but something in Charlie’s reaction told her it wasn’t.
After a meal of reheated spicy noodles carried from Shadowtown the atmosphere grew tense. “What’s going on?” Rosie, already tired and on edge, couldn’t take it.
“We can at least show her, let her make the call.” Brandon sounded like he wanted to convince Charlie, rather than just order her.
“Fine, but it’s been down there a century. Another few days won’t make a difference.”
Curiosity and Brandon’s hint of excitement provided enough motivation for Rosie to descend further below ground. By her reckoning the straight metal staircase ended not much deeper than the stockroom, never mind level six or even the caves. Yet she felt deeper than ever before, getting further from the sun and stars with every echoing step.
The narrow corridor bored through rock ended in a long hall. An odd pinging sound began to echo from her steps and she saw they walked on tarnished metal tracks set in the floor. “Here it is.” Brandon stepped aside and Rosie saw something she’d seen before.
Round, dark alloy, only a third as big but unmistakably a Vault door. “It’s smaller than usual.” Brandon didn’t ask, he told her. Rosie thought he may have seen more Vault doors than her and nodded, eyes still wide in surprise. “I have a theory.”
“Yeah, got a couple of them myself.” Charlie sounded outright hostile. “None of ‘em good.”
“It’s a panic room, a private, personal Vault of whoever built this place.” Rosie thought Brandon could be right.
“You don’t know that.” Then again, so could Charlie.
“Too small and out of the way to be anything else.”
“For all you know could be those Vault-Tec bastards were working on shrink rays.” Rosie hoped Charlie was being sarcastic. “No number. They always have a number.”
“My Vault…” The words left a bad taste in her mouth. “Didn’t have a number.”
“See.” Rosie stepped from between an increasingly angry Charlie and Brandon. She pressed her palm against the metal, remembering the strange texture from the first time she’d felt it. Then she remembered bringing John to see it too, and the promise they’d made. At least we’re both out, Rosie thought, taking comfort in that.
Seeking distraction Rosie connected the wireless four pin to the outer terminal. If she could defeat a much larger Vault door with the old, crudely coded operating system, then this would be easy. Or at least not take years.
“Rosie…” Charlie warned her with her tone. Rosie’s instinct was to press ahead because she got told not to, but it passed quickly. She knew Charlie had all their safety in mind.
“I’m just looking.” In seconds, the new system overwhelmed what had taken her years to defeat. With a mere twitch of her fingers she could open the door, which she almost did, just because she could. A moment of amusement passed almost as quickly as it came. Replaced with regret that fed her anger. All that time, she thought, wasted. The true power, her real potential kept back by the Overseer. Rosie heard the sound of a crowbar hitting bone and a skull hitting a metal floor.
“I’m in.”
“Can you open it?” Brandon raised a hand to Charlie as he spoke.
“I can make it dance if I want to.” Rosie scrolled to the log. “Been closed since seventy five. Pressure is too low for anything to be alive in there.
“Anything human that is.” Rosie didn’t like Charlie’s tone, or the look of fear on her face.
“Open it.” Brandon stepped back and readied a carbine he took from upstairs.
“We can’t. The pressure needs to equalise. In this tunnel it’ll be like…” Rosie couldn’t quite find the word. “You know outside, when it blows.” Their amusement covered a look of pity that broke that tension. “Only worse. A lot worse.”
“See what I’d tell you Boss. Smart as a whip.” Charlie punched her in the arm, pride replacing pity.
“Suit up. And Rosie, good job.”