Vol. ll Chapter 19 Much better than Vault Day (Part 2 of 2)

"Here, don't forget these." Brandon gave her the thin folder. She opened it to find black and white photographs. Glossy, detailed and larger than the instant photographs she'd seen before. Taken from a high angle, Rosie didn't recognise the man in the picture right away. He hadn't shaved, his hair had grown, he walked tall and with purpose. John.

The next few pictures were taken in rapid succession. John set down his assault rifle and looked to be heading behind a wall. The next picture showed him running, a disgusting yet harmless buck toothed creature at his heels. He turned and shot the creature with his pistol, muzzle flash washing out his image.

The next few pictures were closer. The blonde woman, Sara, laughing hysterically while John looked embarrassed. Next he'd started to laugh too. Rosie pulled out that one and set it aside, finding another copy of it behind.

"That's for me." Brandon smiled and shook his head with a hint of amused empathy. "She is never going to let him live this down."

"It's a beautiful picture." Rosie managed not to cry. She couldn't remember the last time she'd heard him laugh.

"I'll teach you, it's a nice skill to have. There's one more." The last black and white close up showed John sullen, like she saw him last. He stopped in the street as Sara walked on, wiping clean his pistol with a rag. It couldn't have been dirty, he looked exposed, and it made him look hurt.

"What was he doing?" Rosie felt the uncommon feeling of not knowing something about John and she didn't like it.

"I don't know, looks sad doesn't he." Brandon sought to distract her. "Took this one too." Rosie laughed at the picture taken at arms length of Brandon hugging Janey. "I couldn't resist."

"Wait, Janey was with you? What time?"

"About eight hours ago." Rosie accessed Janey's memory, seeing what the optical sensors had recorded. She found John and Sara quick enough and had a much clearer view of him, and yet somehow more remote.

Rosie wound the footage forward and back, freezing and zooming to get a better look. "There's something on the grip. It's a flower I think, green stem, red leaves, and pointy bits." Rosie still didn't understand.

"Thorns." Rosie knew that word, what Brandon had called her knives. "It's a Rose, Rosie." Brandon kept the pity from his voice with a mocking tone, it reminded her of the way he called Matt a bullet magnet. "They say a picture says a thousand words. Although I think this one just says three. He loves you a great deal."

"I know." Rosie took a slow walk over to her bench, pinning up the picture of John's laughing, scruffy looking face. It hurt to look at. Yet somehow having the second picture, tangible proof that the worst thoughts in her head couldn't be true, made her feel better than she had all day.

Rosie lingered over the photographs, stood at her bench, until something cold bumped her bare leg. She looked down and saw a leather seat cushion, taped to a metal plate, mounted on casters.

"Happy birthday." Charlie had rolled Rosie's gift across the floor and stood in her blacks, backpack in one hand, sweeping brush in the other. Rosie couldn't even guess.

"Thank you…" Rosie tried to keep the question from her voice, and failed.

"Look, if you don't want it." Charlie sounded serious, but Rosie couldn't be sure.

"No, no, it's...great." Rosie crouched to get a better look.

"Trousers Rosie." Charlie flung her some fatigues. "You're not in the Bathhouse now." She slipped them on over her new white dress, buying time to think. It looked too long to be a seat, padded so not for standing on. Maybe lying on?

"I have no idea. What is it?" Rosie felt utterly confused and delighted.

"Oh Rosie, poor, sweet, simple Rosie." Charlie practically danced over to her, getting more amused with every step. "You never ask what a gift is, that's a rule." Charlie put an arm around her, slowly turning her. "For example, your gift to me is the picture Brandon just took of you looking like a moron." Brandon peered out from behind the camera, deeply amused.

He kept taking pictures as Charlie slipped a pack onto her shoulders, pulling the straps tight. Rosie still had no idea, until she noticed metal handles had been added. Something looked familiar about the position, and even the shape.

"Wait…" Rosie understood and squealed with glee while Brandon took a picture.

"One thousand. Two thousand. Three thousand. Check canopy!" Rosie lay on her stomach, arms and legs outstretched, getting pushed round on the wheeled plate. "Malfunction!" Charlie shoved the plate with her boot, spinning Rosie across the cleared floor.

"Cut away, pull reserve, check canopy." Rosie said her actions out loud, as she'd done for the last hour.

"Good." Charlie corrected herself. "I mean, I don't know. What do you think, Boss?"

"Awful, dreadful." Brandon helped her up, his face growing serious. "You don't have to do this. It's risky."

"I know, I want to." Rosie tried to sound like she'd considered the risk while calibrating an altimeter inside her eyes. She remembered learning the word parachute and Charlie's lie that wasn't that fun.

"Charlie, your call?" Brandon gave them a nod and stepped back.

"You packed the chutes right?"

"I packed Rosie's, Janey did yours." Charlie didn't find that funny.

"Wheels up in five."

"Tornado, core check." Charlie's manner had become serious since double checking Rosie's seat and attaching the static line. Rosie checked, touching the grenade on her hip at the same time.

"Thirty three." Not enough of a drop, Rosie thought, knowing she'd need more data, and only then realising. Drop.

"Solid copy. Ten thousand feet and climbing." Charlie wound the Velocibird into the still night like a corkscrew. Rosie's nerves grew as the altimeter in her eyes scrolled above twelve thousand. "Last chance, I can tell the boys we hit weather." Charlie didn't use the comm.

"Weather what?" Rosie wondered if she got that joke right.

"No I mean...oh you're making jokes now, funny." Charlie tilted the engines up, settling into a steady hover.

"Tornado, Maelstrom. L.Z. is lit." Rosie peered through the door window as the Velo banked. She blinked, activating her night vision. A pin sized infrared light blinked thousands of feet below, like a star on the ground only she could see. "Approach north to south. Better to run long than short, how copy?"

"Solid copy." Rosie took a deep breath. "I'm ready."

"Harness check." Rosie checked her harness for the sixth time.

"Good to go." Her pulse quickened.

"Dropping in three, two, one." Charlie flipped an overhead switch sending Rosie's seat back and opening in the hatch in the cockpit floor. Wind invaded the near silence inside for an instant then the chair shot upright, sliding Rosie into nothing.

The sudden surge of adrenaline drove Rosie into the dreamlike state, producing a serene, near motionless world. She fought it back, like skimming a rock on water. Her serenity shattered into a world of noise, pressure, and gravity. Her cheeks rippled, the black fatigues flickered, pushed tight against her skin. One thousand.

Rosie shut off the night vision, leaving the altimeter scrolling ever downward. Two thousand. The goggles let her look out on a new horizon, beyond the Red Valley, past the swathes of wasteland and to distant lights. Three thousand, check—. Rosie jerked sharply as the rectangular shape she'd trusted her life to unfurled and caught the pummelling wind. The fabric became rigid as Rosie gripped the toggles, easing into a turn as the silence returned.

She could trace the roads to clusters of lights, stretching on into darkness. To the south the Glassedlands stretched out under shimmering purple. To the east a single line of light cut through the forest of trees and ruins alike, ending in a square, and joining three other lines. The tower dominated everything to the north, beaming up and out, fed by smaller patches of light.

Red forest had taken much of rest below, a faint green glow woven throughout coming from the rivers. The green strands led Rosie's eyes down stream and off to the dried lake bed beyond the lighthouse.

Rosie took a final look at the infrared light, now steady. She plotted a trajectory and went back to swooping through the night. As the leaves grew closer to her boots, Rosie overcorrected, drawing the cords tight and gaining altitude. She passed over the landing zone. The soft grass fell away and became replaced with rocks. She rode the momentum as far as she could before skidding and clattering along the pebbles, coming to halt in knee high water.

Rosie lay on rocky ground, shivering. Not from the cold water, but the adrenaline. She felt a tug on her shoulders and shifted back. The breeze caught the chute, forcing her to fight back by scooping armfuls of strands together. Rocks clattered as Brandon rushed to her side, detaching the harness as she should have done. Within a minute Brandon had the chute bundled in his arms.

"Whirlwind, Maelstrom. Touchdown south of lz."

"Tornado, how copy?" Rosie could hear the laugh in Charlie's voice.

"Solid copy. I just grazed my knee." Rosie didn't care, she could feel the sensation of falling still.

"Sounds serious." Charlie didn't. "Think you can land the Velo?" Rosie checked the core level and connected to the Velo.

"Affirmative."

"Maelstrom, Whirlwind. Request med drop, over?"

"Negative Whirlwind."

"Did not copy your last Maelstrom. Whirlwind inbound."

High above her, Rosie caught sight of a blinking infrared light, falling straight down. Rosie counted and hit five thousand before seeing it slow. Even then it fell fast, descending in an ever tightening loop. She lost sight of the dangling figure, until it appeared from the south, swooping in fast and low.

Charlie drew the chute in tight, bringing her down faster, releasing the harness feet from the ground. The cold water cushioned her precise landing, the impact splashing Rosie as she gawked at the display.

"Wait, did you do that on purpose?" Rosie asked through chattering teeth. Charlie's smile told her she did, which impressed Rosie deeply.

"You're not cold." Charlie told her and took Rosie's pulse the old fashioned way. "Your heart is racing."

"It's the adrenaline." Rosie hesitated, which made little sense. "Normally that's what...pulls me into the slowed time." Brandon and Charlie kept the surprise from their faces. "I stayed out of it for that, so now I can still feel it. Feels pretty fucking great!" Better than numb, she thought.

"Check mine." Rosie placed two trembling fingers on Charlie's wrist and started to count. Knowing Charlie didn't want the information that flashed instantly in her eyes.

"How are you so calm?!" Rosie didn't understand how Charlie's pulse had barely climbed. She laughed loudly into the cool night while Brandon pulled in the sopping wet chute.

"Rosie, I've ridden balloons to forty thousand feet. Then dropped thirty nine thousand of those feet in free fall, into combat." Charlie beamed proudly at the memory. "That was a piece of...a walk in the park." Rosie's teeth stopped clattering as her jaw dropped.

"These balloons…"

"No."

"Yeah but,"

"No." Rosie remembered a similar no about parachuting.

Rosie's knees had turned to jelly, or so they told her, as Brandon and Charlie helped her back to the lighthouse. Charlie even yawned along the way, Rosie didn't think she'd be able to sleep for a week.

After a warm shower in the cellar washroom, Rosie dressed in the flowing silk robe and soft cotton t shirt and shorts that Charlie had left for her. She normally ignored them as the rough touch of her fatigues felt the complete opposite of the smooth material she'd worn all her life. Tonight however, a life underground seemed distant, like a bad dream she'd woken from and pushed from her mind.

The darkness in the cellar caught her off guard, both the suspended and recessed lighting turned off. A lick of flame flashed in the dark by the table, then another, and another still. Singing began as Rosie felt hands guiding her to chair near the flames, thin candles burning atop of something brown and gooey that smelt sweet.

"Blow them out and make a wish." Charlie told her. Rosie didn't understand, but she thought of something she wanted, and blew. The candles snuffed out with a rush of air, plunging them into darkness and cheers. No one turned the lights, Rosie didn't know why, then a flame flickered back to life. She blew it out for a second time as another candle lit again, and another. Before long they were all lit again, then the lights clicked on and Rosie saw Brandon take another picture of her looking confused. Charlie wet her finger and thumb and snubbed out the candles proper.

"Trick candles. Paul thinks he's funny." Rosie didn't hear her, too busy looking at the round shape in front of her. It looked like the chocolate she remembered Brandon giving her. Only this looked soft and sticky.

"Cake. Chocolate cake." Paul handed her one of the Cosmic knives he loved, carefully. "Right across the middle."

"Wait, what'd you wish for?" Charlie asked playfully. Rosie shot a glance over to the picture of John, then hoped no one saw.

"I wished to eat whatever that smell was." Everybody laughed, although Rosie wasn't joking. Wishing won't get him here, she thought, but I will.

She cut free a thick wedge of cake, the gooey, sticky, chocolate layers within revealed. Rosie took a huge bite, tasting a rich sweetness that grew as the textures mixed.

"Good right." Rosie nodded and tried to thank Paul but just sprayed crumbs. "Cut me a slice Rosie." Paul smacked his lips as Rosie positioned the sharp alloy knife. "Bit bigger, little bigger." Rosie swept the blade through effortlessly, scoring the wooden board underneath.

Paul took the exact opposite approach to Rosie, holding the slice up to the light, turning the plate, much to Charlie's annoyance. Finally he slipped a fork down the thin end and put a sliver in his mouth.

"Firm, flavourful. Not bad for something from a century old box. Pretty damn good in fact, hey Rosie?"

"Sorry what?" Rosie had just about finished her slice, her fingers and face smeared with chocolate.

"It's not that good." Charlie mumbled through a bite of cake, annoying Paul. As she went for another bite Paul bumped her elbow up, mashing cake into her face. No one laughed as Charlie glared, at least until she took the remainder of her cake and slapped it onto the top of Paul's bald head.

Rosie laughed first, then Brandon, then the others. Charlie bolted as Paul chased her, hoisting her up and over his broad shoulder. "Stop it, stop!" Charlie continued her feigned complaints as they headed downstairs.

"Charlie, Paul?" Rosie hated to interrupt their fun. Paul put Charlie down, giving Rosie time to clear the lump in her throat. "Today was the best day of my life, and I wanted to say thank you." Rosie turned to others "All of you, thank you."

"You're welcome Rosie." Charlie winked and smiled. "We'll try to top it next year." Rosie burst into tears of joy. Brandon hugged her and gave Charlie a nod, letting them know he'd take it from here.

"Hey Rosie?" Charlie called out, her head just visible above the descending stairs. "Can you see that note I left stopping you from messing with this stuff?" Rosie looked across the haul from the train, flanked by twin dull green suits of power armour, stacks of crates filled with riot gear and weapons.

"No, I can't see it." Rosie answered, wiping her eyes with sticky hands.

"That's strange, neither can I." Rosie's face lit up as Charlie headed down.