Chapter 62 “What’s a Ben Franklin?

Rosie flew south, John and Grimm in the gunner’s seats, Fenris to her left. They landed, and headed inside to find a flurry of activity. Janey pressed ammo, Matt loaded magazines. Paul laid out the contents of the packs, Charlie checked the items off the list. Brandon studied the maps.

“We have one objective.” Brandon started the briefing. “Assassinate Jones. We take him off the board and things get a whole lot easier.” He shuffled the maps, putting one on top. “The meet is here. The outlet for a man made canal, run off for an old water treatment plant. Twenty two hours from now. Myself, Paul, and John, will go in as the Baron’s personal guard. I want you four in position before sun up. Put that outlet in a fucking kill box. Nothing leaves unless we want to.” The danger of the plan wasn’t lost on any of them.

“What if he wants us to go to a second location?” Paul asked, his experience of operations like this showing through.

“Loose follow.” Brandon looked to her. “I’m assuming you can help with that.”

“Yeah.” Rosie had learned not to add technical information they didn’t need.

“What does it want?” John asked the question they were all thinking.

“Don’t do that.” Brandon corrected him. “This isn’t a mindless brute, not an it. He has an agenda, intent, patience. That’s why he needs to go. No matter what.”

Rosie flew Matt and Grimm out remotely. The Velo dropped them a few miles out. She let Charlie fly the both of them out, giving her something to do. They landed a mile south, walking towards the dry lakebed.

Rosie stopped by a husk of an old car. She looked out across the rocky lakebed, staring at the concrete trench carved into the earth. “I’m going to set up here.” Rosie took the weight of the heavy bag carried between them, setting it done gently.

“Good hunting.” Charlie took her bolt action rifle, fitted with a scope and suppressor. She disappeared back into the night.

Rosie filled some bags with dirt. She laid them out on the boot, bonnet and roof of the car. From the bag she took her antique rifle, resting the bipod on the roof. Next Rosie set up the assault rifle on the boot. High calibre, box magazine, loud and fast. She hoped not to need it.

Lastly, she assembled the fifty cal. Rosie took it as a point of pride that Matt handed it off to her. Both of them knowing two things. First, that a clean shot could end this. And second, that Rosie had the better chance of making the shot count. At eight hundred metres with no wind, it wouldn’t even be hard.

With the fifty calibre set up on the bonnet, Rosie settled in. “So, what do you think he wants?” She asked over the comm.

“It’s opening night.” Charlie said, using the same shorthand as Brandon. “He wants his name out there.”

“You don’t kill the king off stage.” Grimm replied. “If he wanted the Baron dead, he’d pick a more public spot.”

“Maybe he has a job, I hear the Baron has a serious crew.” Matt tried to keep things light.

“He does, but we’ll go half speed so you and the old man can keep up.” Rosie threw in a jibe.

“Movement.” Grimm shut down the chatter. “Got four, make that six. Coming in from the south.”

“Fuck. It’s Madame Yao, queen of the Hunters.” Matt sounded worried.

Rosie shifted to get a better view. In all her time at the Four Corners, she’d never seen the fearsome Madame Yao. Through her scope she caught sight of the permanently painted faces of the Hunters. In the centre, a woman. Younger then she’d imagined, and striking to look at. Her coal black hair blended with the fur coat. She recognised her second, seeing the burly man in a matching coat. It could have been her father.

“Movement.” Charlie came over the comm. “Don Gino and five of his goons.” Rosie lined up on the approaching members of the Family. Mud on their polished shoes and pressed suit trousers. “It’s a Ben Franklin.” Charlie sounded worried.

“What’s a Ben Franklin?” Rosie asked, unfamiliar with the play.

“Join or die.” Charlie’s answer made Rosie tense up.

John emerged from the trees in his Deathclaw armour. He stood motionless, save for the brief gesture of respect for Madame Yao. Rosie grinned as she saw the gesture returned. Paul and Brandon appeared either side of John, staring outwards like mere bodyguards. John stepped aside, revealing the Baron. A mutated skull faceplate, the skulls of mutant hounds on the shoulders. Rosie saw the fear it brought out in the Family.

The tension built as the day turned to night. Rosie heard everything John did.

“Fuck this. Asshole calls a meet and doesn’t show.” Don Gino flicked his cigarette end in John’s general direction. “We’re outta this country bullshit. Freaking uncivilised is what it is.” Gino’s goons parroted the last thing he said back to him as they started to leave.

“What’s your hurry, Don Gino?” A deep voice echoed from the sewer grate set in the sides of the canal. Rosie had heard it before. She shifted to the fifty. “You afraid that metal men might descend from above, brutalise your family and put them on display? I was, for years.” The voice kept shifting.

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“Those tin can fascists ain’t our problem. My people tell me they’re looking for old junk, let ‘em. They’ll get bored eventually.” Don Gino dismissed the threat, even as he stood in Brotherhood crosshairs.

“When they get bored they’ll come for you. For all of you. Your lives mean nothing to them.” Jones snarled. “I can stop them.”

Madame Yao stepped forward, speaking in a language Rosie couldn’t translate. “Her Grace finds no glory or honour in hunting metal men.” The burly man spoke for her as she glared. “Much like hiding in the shadows like prey.”

Her provocation worked. One of the long rusted shut, heavy sewer grates creaked and screeched before being tossed aside. Out stepped a figure, dressed in crude clothing. Ten feet tall, bulging musculature, putrid green flesh and yellow eyes.

“Execute.” Brandon whispered.

“Odin, red.” Grimm didn’t have an angle.

“Cyclone, red.” Neither did Matt.

“Whirlwind, yellow.” Charlie had a wounding shot, which could do more harm than good at this point.

“Tornado. Something’s wrong.” Rosie had the perfect shot, her finger on the trigger, but she couldn’t fire. He just stood there out in the open.

“Take the fucking shot.” Brandon growled.

“Negative. Play this out.” Rosie’s instincts screamed at her to hold.

“Plan Bravo.” Brandon snapped, readying his cut down carbine.

The Baron’s dark eye sockets began to glow red. Brighter and brighter till the bone started to melt. A blast of red light shot from the Baron’s face, searing half of the mutant’s head to nothing in an instant. The body fell flat with a cold hard slap. Hunters drew bows tight. The Family loaded the old world submachine guns they carried. Janey fell backwards from the Baron’s armour and someone jumped in.

“I tried to be reasonable.” The voice echoed from the sewer, a low rumble behind it. John extended the blade under his forearm. The Baron’s hound skull shoulder plates shifted down runners on the arms, locking in place over the fists, jaws open.

Sewer grates popped open. A torrent of green muscle and rage filled the trench, barrelling down towards the others. Rosie slipped into the dreamlike state, flitting between firing positions. Her bullets landed with devastating effect.

Bulbous heads burst like rotten fruit. High calibre, armour piercing rounds killed one mutant and the one behind it. The Hunters fought with arrows and spear, every shot a kill. The Family did little more than waste ammo as Don Gino tripped over his men trying to get away.

John powered into the fray. Punching and slicing, ripping and tearing. The Baron used the caestus like fists to bite chunks out of throats, legs, torsos. Janey paced back and forth, bolts of searing red light dropping targets.

“Janey, start charging.” Rosie saw an opportunity. “Ronin, cover Janey.”

“Copy.” John grunted. He fought his way to Janey, cutting a swathe of mutants down as the heat built behind him.

“Firing in three.” Rosie could see the light from her position. “Two.” John barked at the others to get back. “One. Now.” Rosie sent the command, John lurched clear.

Night became bright as noon. Janey lunged forward, sweeping the beam across. Decapitated mutant bodies fell where they stood. Mutated flesh and bone vaporised. Those mutants left standing lashed out, burned and blinded. Sniper fire and arrows finished them off. The ever present, deafening silence of the wastes returned.

“Anyone have eyes on Hurricane and Maelstrom?” John’s worry soon spread. “You’re sure? Fuck.” He spoke to someone before getting back on the comm. “Yao saw them go into the sewers. In pursuit.”

“Request permission to assist.” Rosie asked over the comm.

“Go.” Charlie ordered. Rosie grabbed her tactical shotgun from the bag, and took a deep breath.

Rosie zipped across the lakebed in the dreamlike state, craters left in the loose rock as she bounded across. She came to a stop in front of an unnerved Madame Yao. The burly man on the floor, gasping for breath. She stepped forward to help, getting a spear held at her throat. Rosie didn’t have time for explanations.

She snatched at the spear, spinning into a strike that gave her room to work. Rosie held her black dagger between the man’s ribs and tapped the handle with her palm. Blood bubbled through the hissing, half inch cut. The man drew in a full breath, like he’d been saved from drowning.

“Which way?” Rosie demanded. Madame Yao stared, taking in her Shadow suit. Yao pointed at an entrance to the sewers.

Rosie entered the sewer tunnel, heading for the echoing sounds of a fight. She turned a corner, seeing John fending off mutants. Half a dozen more came from the other end, charging down the circular tunnel. Rosie charged them back, sprinting into the dreamlike state.

Her speed built, moving fast enough to run up the curved wall. She brought the muzzle of the shotgun level with the rictus grin and fired. She used the momentum to leap from one wall to the other, taking out another lumbering brute.

Rosie slid as her speed dropped, firing as she did. A heavy stomp missed her with time to spare. She rolled into a crouch, firing straight up into the chin of the nearest mutant. The falling corpse gave Rosie cover to shoot the last two. The angled orbs struck, piercing green hide, but didn’t even slow them down. Rosie snapped her fingers.

Muffled bangs sounded as she ducked. The explosive rounds detonated, spattering the sewer tunnel with blood and viscera.

“Medic!” John’s yell echoed. She pushed past the burning in her muscles and zipped to him. “Medic!” He could do little else but yell from inside his armour. Rosie got round him, finding the Baron, twisted and thrown to the ground like a broken toy.

She yanked at the temporary metal faceplate, seeing Paul’s face. “Jones…” He gasped for air. “took…” He tried to point with a broken arm and screamed. Rosie stuck him with a dose of med-x, writing the time on his forehead in his own blood. She didn’t know where to start.

Barking and bounding footsteps brought Fen and Charlie round the corner, Janey behind them. “Baby, talk to me.” Charlie made her assessment, her face ashen. “He needs a trauma team, get the Velo here. I’ll fly him to the outpost.”

“On it, thirty seconds.” Rosie brought the Velo in remotely, frantically tearing packs of clotting agent open.

“Boss, took, the Boss!” Paul growled through gritted teeth and blood coming from his mouth.

“Go.” Charlie ordered. “There’s nothing you can do here, go.”

“We’ll find him.” Rosie looked Paul in the eye, seeing him ease. “Janey, with me.”

“Negative. Paul’s chances of survival are significantly higher with my assistance.” Janey began pulling broken metal from bleeding wounds, zapping them shut.

“They’re going to the outpost, it’s not safe for you there.” Rosie tried to make her understand.

“An acceptable risk.” She wouldn’t be deterred.

“I’ll handle it. Go.” Charlie set to work keeping her husband alive. Rosie took off, letting Fen lead her and John further into the sewers.