Chapter 58 “A spot of tea, sir?”

“A spot of tea, sir?” The three armed bot asked him in its old world accent.

“Yes, thank you.” Jones had taught the bot to brew tea from psychotropic leaves and hallucinogenic mushrooms. The noxious mixture would kill a man. It brought Jones a much needed sense of calm.

“Perhaps a cigar would ease sir’s mood.” A metal claw offered him a clipped cigar. Made from four normal sized ones, herbs and powders mixed in. He bit into it and blue flame set it alight.

Jones gulped the hot tea from a pitcher that still felt small. He drew smoke into his oversized lungs, exhaling like a chimney. He began to feel the effects almost immediately. The monster he kept locked in his mind placated, for now.

Jones stepped out of the office in the old world factory he’d claimed as his own. He wore the clothes he’d fashioned. An overcoat made from tires, rolled flat and stitched together. Trousers cut from truck canvas. Crude boots of iron and leather.

He didn’t need the clothes, other than to hide his shame. His coarse, leathery skin didn’t feel the cold, or warmth, or much sensation of any kind. He wore them for the same reason he did a great many things. To remind himself he was still a man. He hadn’t forgotten and let the monster loose. Unlike his brethren below.

The factory floor belonged to dozens of mutants. Dim, simple creatures. Happy with raw meat and the chems he kept them dosed with. Genetically programmed to follow the strongest of their own kind. And each one of them a failure.

“Jones.” A voice rasped to his side. Luton, one time soldier turned ghoul slaver. The Brotherhood killed his entire crew, leaving their heads on spikes. He’d have a spot right next to them, if he hadn’t been at The Grand. Too out of it on downers to know what day it was.

Jones heard the story and reached out, gaining a valuable ally. His contacts and old world knowledge proved crucial in getting set up. Plus Luton hated those metal bastards as much as he did.

“Next batch is ready.” Luton had been working in the lab, cooking what Jones taught him.

Outside the factory, parts of the perimeter fence had been converted to pens. Broken people behind chainlink. He’d started with beggars and junkies. Easily lured by the promise of free chems. Most of them didn’t survive.

These were far from sickly junkies. The people he’d snatched up were farm workers, well fed and strong. Some of them took the pills served with their food, spending their last days in a haze. Others seemed wide eyed and alert to the horror.

“That one.” Jones stayed back, sending in the raiders. Brutalised by the Brotherhood for years, every clan pledged their support. He kept them onside by making them partners in the chem trade. They snorted, shot, and smoked more than they sold. Still, they never missed a drop and paid in slaves. Most of all, they kept him well insulated.

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One of the prisoners resisted, earning a crack with a pistol. Her nose poured blood. Instantly Jones could smell the copper tinge on the air. The monster in his mind rattled its cage.

Luton gave the first injection as the raiders held her down. A cocktail of every chem Jones had taken before he changed. While he knew what would have been within reach that fateful day, however the correct dosages had eluded him.

The first injection sent the woman into a seizure. She’d be dead in less than a minute. The raiders held her down as best they could. Luton drew the bright green liquid into a copper syringe the size of a beer bottle. Without hesitation, Denton stuck her in the neck.

Bones broke under rapid growth, healing stronger. Flesh turned green, toned and toughened. Then the eyes went. Sockets reshaping, the colour shifting to yellow.

Jones watched intently, as he always did. Reliving his own trauma again and again. Then he saw it, the spark of awareness behind the eyes. He rushed over, taking the newly formed skull in his hands. “Look at me!” Jones demanded, to no avail. The spark vanished, the eyes became dull like the rest.

The disappointment weakened his resolve. He felt his hands tighten, crushing bone and slick with blood. The failure’s skull caved in, and the monster drew breath.

Jones regained himself mere seconds later. The body pounded into mush, torn off leg in his hand.

“Needs to be a gas, faster absorption, higher intake.” Jones snarled at Luton as they walked away.

“We’re working on it. They ain’t exactly Burton Blake up there you know.” Luton tried to defend his hand picked chemists. “Gotta say, a dumb brute is more useful than a dead one.”

“The dead aren’t useless.” Jones wasn’t interested in Luton’s objections. “My brethren need to eat.”

“Yeah well those metal bastards find us, undermanned and outgunned, they’ll tear through us like chink infantry.” Luton walked away, safe in knowing Jones needed him.

Jones slipped out of the compound. He picked up the pace, moving faster and faster without feeling short of breath. Minutes later the rough ground became smooth. Ribbons of light danced overhead. The radioactive miasma soothed his body.

Jones sat crossed legged on the flat ground of the Glassedlands. He tried to clear his mind, remembering Amber, and what he called her hippy bullshit. She taught him to meditate, he’d gone along to make her happy. Now it might be the only thing that kept the monster sated.

Darkness had fallen by the time he returned to the factory. His sharpened hearing picked up muttering from the cages. “It’s as sharp as it’s going to get. Next time they bring food, you grab him, I’ll stick him.” A younger man said.

“Never should've left.” An older man said, like he’d been repeating it.

“We don’t even know where to go.”

“Hey.” A woman half called out. “What level are you from?”

“Four, you?” The younger man sounded hopeful.

“Six, I know where to go.”

Jones had an instinct to punish them. Put them on the needle so they wouldn't want to leave. Then he had a better idea.