Vol. ll Chapter 34 “I’m going home.” (Part 2 of 2)

"Wallace, don't you touch nothin'. And mind what John tells you." Robco sat opposite the power armour, crates and boxes not stacked high enough to block the view.

"If you're going to fly left stick, you'll need a call sign." John couldn't help but try and impress the boy as he checked the straps and handed him the headset.

"What's a call sign?" Wallace tore his eyes from from the convex bubble window.

"Like a nickname."

"Wizard." Wallace answered in no time at all. "That's my signature, Wallace the Wizard."

"Solid copy Wizard." John spoke over the comm and flicked overhead switches as the airframe shuddered to life.

"What's yours?" Wallace asked. "Over."

"Ronin. It's a—"

"Masterless samurai, that's awesome." John smiled but wondered if in fact the name Elder Maxwell gave him had been a cruel joke. Then he remembered why he liked the story of betrayed warriors in the first place. They did what needed to be done.

Wallace cheered with excitement, straining to look out of the window as they cleared the treetops. Robco drank from his hip flask in the back. John eased forward and into a bank, easily done with triple rotor engines locked upright.

John flew for twenty minutes. Low loops with the sound dampeners on, then going into a steady hover. "Wizard." Wallace turned. "You have control." John let go of the stick, still in control with the pedals and laughed as small hands clasped tight to the left flight stick. When Valkyrie did this to him she put the Bird into a dive first. John just let them hover. Wallace eased the stick forward as John worked the pedals, letting them coast through the very edge of the endless blue.

"There it is!" Wallace pointed and John saw the home he'd spent a single night at. Steel roofing glinting in the low sun, making the log walls seem even darker, all clustered round a single road in the forest. Not fully built when the bombs fell, Robco had found this place and brought life to it. The lower they got the smaller it seemed to John. When he'd first arrived it seemed huge, now it looked not much bigger than two hangars at Excalibur Outpost.

People clustered around the circular yard, staring up. John had made a far less dramatic entrance last time, and that time he'd nearly shot a dog. The wheels touched down with a loud squeak as people turned from the dust. Robco dove out almost immediately, getting caught in the downdraft and stumbling. Louisa came to his aid, the draft blowing her blue dress against her slender legs.

"Momma! Momma did you see! I flew that!" Wallace bounced up and at his mother's back like the dog when she carried food.

John waited till the engines fully stopped and stepped out. "Oh hello John, didn't see you there." Louisa quipped as she drew him in for a tight hug. "We'll find her, don't worry." She whispered in his ear.

"I know, I'm alright." John felt determined not to be the jittery, frightened man she'd met, but stand tall as a sworn knight. He shook hands and greeted the ten or so new faces, he recognised Big Mike, and Little Mike his son, but no one else.

"Wallace, why don't you have Doris move John's things." Louisa shouted over to her son. She turned to John, "There's nothing in there that'll hurt him right?" John stepped quickly to the cabin and grabbed the light machine gun and his warhammer from the rack.

Even he struggled with the weight of both. Robco came forward and took the gun, letting out a low whistle. A clanking sound drew John's attention to an Assaultron, dull green, and under Wallace's command.

"Doris," The boy addressed the killer robot. "Take these to John's house." The words made him stop in his tracks.

The half built house, offered in gratitude for saving his host's life, had been finished. Dark wooden logs and mismatched glass windows. The door and raised porch made from pale planks lacquered to a high sheen. John stopped at the door frame, made from thinner logs. Robco had carved a J on one side, and John had carved an R on the other. But that wasn't what caught his eye.

John had made a copy of Rosie's code, uploading it to the half Sentry bot in the back of the truck. In hope more than anything else, he'd labelled the file, J<3R. The same thing that had now been carved into the door.

"Lou did that." Robco stopped behind John, smiling at the simple gesture. John ran his thumb across it, hoping.

Inside beige wood lined the walls, a red brick chimney with a single worn couch in front of it. An open kitchen with an oven and metal sink. A dining table with four odd chairs. John walked in and felt the warm morning light, the smell of wood, not metal. The bedroom had a double bed, a wardrobe and some drawers, with a window built into the roof.

"Mike's idea." Robco added.

"Thank you Mike." John smiled at the idea of waking up to the sun, like being in the field.

"Don't thank him yet." Robco led John past the modest bathroom, and out to the back. "Mike's idea." Robco jabbed at the worn and battered heavy punching bag on a stand. "Mike was a hell of a boxer, heavy weight champ for the Sheriff's eight years running. He keeps promising you a lesson, so don't thank him yet." John threw his own jab and shifted the stand.

"Thank you Mike."

"I thought this here might make a nice workshop." Robco showed John the three walled extension, concrete floor with electric lights. "But I haven't got round to making your bench." Robco clapped him on the back. "Guess you'll have to use our shop for now."

"I'd like that."

The smell of food filled the new home as Louisa brought a cooked breakfast over. John devoured four bacon rolls, understanding why everyone hated the pre-war pouches he'd lived on for months. He sat out the back with Robco as Wallace followed the bot round with John's gear.

"Is this an induction forge?!" Wallace exclaimed as John ate soft bread and crisp bacon.

"Wallace, don't go rooting." Louisa shouted from the kitchen.

"Alright, I'm done now. Thank you Doris." Wallace dismissed the bot and turned his attention to John. "I put the clothes there, the books there, and the guns and bullets there." There were more weapons than anything else. All John could think was he fired this many rounds in two days on base.

"Well you missed one." John went to press the button to call the armour but let Wallace do it.

Wallace watched closely as the armour walked and turned, getting John to flex the mechanised hands. John opened the power armour manually and heaved free the duffle bag.

"Those are some old pistols to trade, they're not loaded." He handed them to Robco to cast his trader's eye over. "And I don't know what the rest of this stuff is worth." John tipped the haul from the bank vault out. Gold ingots clanked on the concrete, pouches of gemstones glinted as Robco opened them. Louisa tried on the brackets, chains, and rings.

"What'd you do, rob a bank?" Robco joked.

"Yeah. Melted the locks with thermite and hit it with my hammer." John thought about how much Sara enjoyed that afternoon. "There's five thousand caps too. Take whatever you want."

"Not how this works son. Thirty percent of your caps go to the community fund, make sure folk got food and medicine, clothes, bullets. Gives us caps on hand in case we gotta buy parts or something."

"Take fifteen hundred, please." John wanted them to have it.

"We'll take five, this month." Louisa settled it.

"The rest of this stuff is yours, we'll reach out, maybe Virgil will trade for some of it." Robco already had a few ideas.

"I can make jewellery from it." Louisa seemed to like that.

"Oh and these too." John reached into the side pocket for the antique watches, handing six of them to Robco while an envelope addressed to him caught his eye.

John recognised Sara's flowing handwriting. He tore at the paper and something clinked to the floor. Three rings, one with a bullet sized stone, and two modest silver, had been tied together with a knot she taught him. He picked it up, puzzled, and unfolded the envelope. 'Have a real wedding, that's an order!' Underneath Sara had added '(Look it up.) P.S.M.'

John hid the rings and note in the drawer by his bed, changing into the clothes he found inside. Getting out of the under armour felt good. John wondered when he might wear it next. He ditched the Vault suit and pulled on the check shirt and jeans. He found his belt, holsters and multi-tool in a box outside.

"Let me see, please." Wallace had been excitable for a couple of hours now.

"The belt you made never let me down." John handed it over to Wallace who tied the belt from a single fifty meter length of paracord that could take John's weight.

"I know." Wallace handed it back to him. "Hey, can you strip that carbine for me, please?" John looked to Robco who nodded and he broke down his assault carbine with an underbarrel shotgun.

"I see you added to the pistol." Robco beckoned him to sit as Wallace started drawing round gun parts.

John put the belt on, drew the rose carved pistol, clearing the chamber and catching the bullet like Styx taught him. "New compensator and suppressor, rail mount with attachments, somewhere." John sat back and ate another sandwich. Robco snapped the slide forward, aiming at the settlement wall.

"You have call to use it in anger?" Robco asked, his face saying he knew the answer.

"Yeah." John filled Robco in about his rescue operations at the missile silo and factory. Robco laughed as John told him the reward for saving strangers had been a bottle of his whiskey and an assault rifle that looked like his new one. John told him about the rooftop rescue, the building he collapsed from the inside and the horror it uncovered.

"Then I shot him." John told Robco about the inhuman, long before he became a ghoul, monster he shot in cold blood.

"Fact is John some folk need shooting." Robco looked conflicted, almost trying to convince himself and John. "You did right. I'm proud to have you here."

"John?" Louisa called from inside. He went into his house and found things added. Rugs made from patches of carpet, a low table by the couch and a lamp. "I made the bed up, rest. I'll make dinner before you leave tonight." The wood framed bed with woven leather headboard had been covered in white cotton sheets, the shirts used to make it left as part of the design. John fell onto the soft bed, finding it too soft, for the few minutes it took to drift off.

John woke to a patch of stars framed in the window above his bed and lay there till the grey clouds took them away. He must have been more tired than he thought, he'd slept through all his things being brought in. For a moment he stopped, releasing he didn't have a briefing to refer to.

John started with his vault-suit, that seemed right. He put on the check shirt and jeans, keeping the pistol visible on his hip. As John rummaged for a weapon sling, something by the door caught his eye. The fine leather coat he'd felt lucky to borrow, and had returned months ahead of him with a tale of Abominations in the night. John pulled the coat back on, the chainmail sleeves providing a comforting weight, and the coat long enough to cover the carbine.

John ate quietly, enjoying the fresh food and vibrant spices, thinking through the next few hours. Wallace had stood a table on end outside, hanging paper from it and drawing round the power armour as John manipulated it.

"Ready?" John asked as Louisa helped John into the coat she'd made for her husband.

"Sure you don't want to walk?" Robco barely touched his food, he hadn't enjoyed the joyride in the Vertibird.

"It's not as bad in the front seat."