Vol. III Chapter 64 “I am what they made me.”

Chapter 63 "I am what they made me."

The sewer tunnels brought them out onto the lakebed. South of where they'd last seen Brandon. Hazy light from the Glassedlands washed out the terrain, making it hard to judge distance. Rosie came to a stop, not knowing where to go. Fen couldn't tell which foul scent to follow now the mutants had split up.

John caught up. "Which way?" She didn't have an answer. Rosie fought to quiet her mind. To be focused and present, like Brandon taught her. Something glinted on the collapsed road bridge, catching the dancing light. She ran over, finding a bullet. Five point seven calibre, the same as the ones in her sidearm.

"On me." Rosie took point, scanning the ground ahead.

Matt and Grimm caught up. Matt's tracking got them to bullet after bullet. Till they found a blood stained magazine, half empty on the ground.

The blood trail and Fen's nose kept them moving south. Every step increased the radiation. "Matthew, I need you to take Fen and Grimm, set up a position." She could see him looking queasy.

"I'm fine." He lied.

"Yeah but Fen isn't." She told a half truth. "We'll need cover on the way out. There's an old bridge north of here, we'll meet you there. All three of us."

"You find him, you call. Rads or not." Matt accepted he could do no more. He took the Deathclaw armour, leaving John in his Shadow suit like hers.

She took the lead, darting from footprint to footprint. The trail grew fainter and the ground became arid and lifeless. The harsh wind blew coarse dust from the radioactive scar left on the world. It ate away metal, scratched words from old road signs. The only possible path, a remnant of a road. That split in two.

"We need to split up." Rosie knew it went against their training, their instinct. "Unless you have a better idea?"

"I don't. I'll head south, you go west." John didn't try to talk her out of it. "Rosie, I...Good hunting."

The skeleton of an old truck dotted the road ahead. Eaten away to almost nothing. Wheels fallen flat, axels and engine block exposed. She decided the truck must have been going somewhere and carried on following the road. Trying not to poke holes in her assumptions.

Dumb luck brought her to the only structure around. A pre-war factory. Broken down trucks outside and lights in the windows. The faded logo on the truck trailers sparked something in her mind. She'd seen it before, but couldn't place it. Then it hit her. Sugar Bombs, century old cereal made from refined sugar. The same ingredient found in high end Jet.

"Ronin, Tornado. How copy?" Rosie didn't get an answer, the dust on the wind blocking any signal.

Rosie couldn't wait. She engaged the stealth field, and made for building. The optical camouflage fell away after a few steps, leaving her exposed in open ground. She could pick out the burning ember from a cigarette, the so called guard leaning on a railing. Rosie did the only thing she could and dropped, crawling slowly to the building.

She took the cigarette end falling to the ground in front of her as a good sign.

Rosie stopped at the corner. Peering round, she made out pens at the far end, people walking towards them. She worked the charging handle of her shotgun, swapping out the last explosive shell for a full load of slugs. With an uneasy feeling, she propped the shotgun behind a drainpipe, ready for getting out.

Free from the metal and protruding shape of the shotgun, the stealth field held. Chatter from the pens, and hope, drew her nearer. A pair of raiders hauled heavy buckets to an old bathtub by the pens, tipping in hunks of rancid meat.

"Ok, now what?" One asked, wired and twitching.

"Help me drag it in front of the gate. Be ready with that pistol, they're ornery these ones."

Rosie drew closer as the raiders shifted the bathtub. The pen had been reinforced with girders around a chainlink gate. Inside, half a dozen mutants. Some paced, others chattered a constant stream of nonsense.

A thought she'd tried not to have lodged in her head. She crept closer, glancing into the bathtub. Nothing in there seemed human. "WHAT IS IT?!" One of the mutants pressed itself against the gate, almost looking at her.

"Fuck, hit it now!" The raider yelled. The other drew what Rosie took for a pistol at first. The raider squeezed the trigger of his toy gun repeatedly, spraying a clear liquid into the eyes and mouth of the agitated mutant. It became calmer almost instantly.

"What's in this thing?" The raider exclaimed over the sound of chewing.

"Hell if I know, just don't drink it." He barred the gate and started heading back. "Seen a guy take a hit once. Danced around like an idiot for five minutes, then started trying to tear his own skin off."

"Must be a killer high though." The raider chomped a pill that made him shiver.

Rosie trailed them to the factory. One whistled sharply, and a ladder lowered for them from a gantry above. She didn't have time to think of a better idea and darted for the ladder.

"Gonna have to start hitting the Buffout!" One raider teased as he watched his friend struggle.

"Heavier than it looks." The other grunted. Between them they hauled the ladder up, and Rosie along with it.

Rosie gripped the rung with one hand, her cutglass dagger in the other. Neither interrupted the stealth field, its telltale shimmer going unnoticed. She forced herself to walk slowly on the gantry, keeping silent.

She followed the raiders in through a hole in the brickwork. Inside the mezzanine floor and offices had been isolated from the factory floor below. Rosie looked down, terrified by what she saw. The ground floor lay empty. Meaning hundreds of mutants were out there, somewhere.

Lights and movement spurred her on. The raiders had a glass walled office as their own. Rosie went in the opposite direction, keen to let the raiders party if it meant them staying out of her way.

She found herself in a lab, bubbling distillations and dirty glassware. Through the grimy windows, she saw a figure moving. Too big to be human. Sacks of refined sugar and flour lined the walls. Jones paced by the cargo lift

"Subject exhibits above average healing. Eye did not regenerate." Jones spoke to an old domestic bot. "Smoke, Featherby." The bot held out a huge cigar for him to take, lighting it for him. Smoke billowed into the room, wisps curving around her head and shoulders.

Rosie padded slowly, silently, keeping the stealth field in place. Suddenly the dreamlike state forced her into the slowed time. A huge cleaver span end over end, wedging into a wooden beam in front of her with a sharp crack.

"I see your aura, girl." Jones looked right at her. "It drips with red." He exhaled clouds of lingering grey smoke. Rosie knew he had her outmatched physically, outnumbered and outgunned. She did what Brandon taught her, appearing strong when weak. She shut off the stealth field. "What are you?" He asked, taking in her form.

"I am what they made me." Rosie saw a glint of recognition in the beady yellow eyes.

"Ah, the brave girl. We meet again." Jones remembered their encounter in the Glassedlands. "You've shed your skin and grown one anew. I respect your evolution." He seemed to find a connection that made Rosie wretch. "So, once again the Brotherhood sends its assassin. What makes you think things will be different this time?" Jones snarled, ready for a fight he would surely win. Rosie took off her mask and pulled back her hood.

"I'm not part of the Brotherhood. Not really. More of an independent contractor." Rosie couldn't think of anything she cared about less than her oath. "I'm here for family."

"He was there when they did this to me." Jones took a deep drag of acrid smoke to keep calm. "Him and a blonde woman with twin swords."

"He had nothing to do with that." Rosie stepped closer, looking Jones in the eye. "You give him to me and I'll bring you the man who gave the order." She half thought the elder might go along. "To meet my maker. That's what you want right. I'll bring him to you. I'll bring you his fucking head if you want. Just give me what I came for." Her desperation bled into her every word.

"I don't need you to get me what I want." Jones motioned to the bot. It hovered over, a surgical tray in one of its claws.

Her eyes fell to the tray. Brandon's dagger, lock knife and lighter sat next to a stack of instant print photographs. She grabbed at the pictures, hands trembling as she saw.

The first showed Brandon, beaten and bloodied. The next one showed him missing an eye. The one after showed a large needle in his neck, the bright green contents being injected. "No." Rosie fell to her knees. The last photograph lay on the floor. A one eyed mutant, knelt in the closed cargo lift. The mirror image of what she saw before her.

Something broke inside her. A part of her ripped away in an instant, leaving a wound that would never heal.

"I had high hopes for him." Jones stood by the lift, staring down at his handiwork. "A man of such vision, such discipline.

"You're a monster." Rosie filled her heart with hate and fury, getting to her feet.

"I am what they made me." Jones replied, sneering at her pain. "We will have to hope that when he crushes the life from you, it registers somewhere in that impressive mind." Jones hit the emergency button by the lift with his bulbous hand, opening the grate. "Kill." Jones ordered, slipping into the lift to make his escape.

The creature lumbered towards her. Rosie knew Brandon had gone. He would have never hurt her, unlike the mutant. Rosie bobbed and weaved, dodging wild punches and savage kicks. A clumsy lunge gave her the space she needed.

In the dreamlike state, Rosie leapt onto the beast's back. She slashed at the green skin that healed over a missing eye. Rosie took the last explosive shell from the loop on her vest, and pressed it into the wound. Powerful hands gripped her arm, whipping her round and through the air.

She hit the sacks, then the floor as time snapped back. The mutant roared and charged, the wound already healing. Rosie snapped her fingers.

A muted pop sounded as the mutant's head burst open from the inside. Its towering frame dropped with a dull thud. She thought it might have lessened the pain that took hold. It didn't.

Rosie scrambled to get Brandon's things. She found his knives, flask, but couldn't see his lighter. She searched frantically, finding the simple thing that had now become precious. Still the pain worsened with every passing moment. And that fuelled her rage.

The sound of human footsteps drew her attention like a predator smelling blood on the wind. She put her mask on, and stood by the door.

"Boss, you good?" The raider called meekly from outside. She stepped in and Rosie cut her throat. She saw the fear in her eyes as a shadow watched her die. Still the pain worsened. She slashed at the piled sacks, zipping back and forth. The air filled with flour and powdered sugar, whipped up in her wake.

Rosie found what she needed from the chem lab. She filled a glass jar with ether, another with red phosphorus. She set them both on a table, angled to give her a clean line of sight from the gantry.

"Fire! Fire in the lab!" Rosie screamed. She hopped over and hung from the railing, letting the raiders rush on to the gantry. Then she pulled herself up and tapped the last raider in line on the shoulder.

Bullets went through legs. Faces smashed into the railing. Arm's and ankles broken as Rosie worked her way down the line. All eight of them lay broken and crippled before her. Still the pain worsened.

"First one to talk gets out of here." She made sure they could see her. No one spoke. "Fine." She put it in a fresh mag and pulled back the slide. Laughter through broken teeth made her even angrier. "Something funny?" The laugh turned to a pained growl as she stepped on a bullet wound.

"You...You killed my whole family. Strung 'em up like a fucking butcher's shop." He spat blood. "Now Jones is going to kill every one of you metal bastards." He started to laugh again. "No one's gonna tell you shit."

"Then you'll burn." Rosie fired, smashing the jars.

A white hot chemical reaction gave birth to flame. The flour and sugar in the air gave the burgeoning fire reach. An inferno erupted, tearing open the roof, sucking in air as further fuel. Rosie heard screams as she retrieved her shotgun. They didn't last long.

The factory collapsed into the fire she'd set, soon wiped from view. Unlike the horror she had found.

Rosie walked in a daze. She couldn't tell left from right, north from south. The closest thing she'd ever had to a father taken from her. Then weaponised and turned on her. Rosie found the one thing that made her feel something. Hate, pure and deep.

"Rosie." Suddenly John stood beside her. She tried to speak, only to break into hysterical sobbing.

Twenty minutes of walking later, Grimm landed the Vertibird in front of them. Matt bounded to her, assuming she'd been wounded. "I couldn't save him. I'm so sorry." Rosie couldn't look Matt in the eye.

"What happened?" Matt tried to question her, she burst back into tears. John pulled him away, whispering in his ear. It broke him.

John got her and Matt strapped in the back. "Where to?" Grimm asked from the pilot's seat.

"I need to get her home. Then we go to the outpost."