Baltimore War Factory (Kelso's Logs)

**Kelso's Logs #20: Baltimore War Factory**

*A city-sized factory? I'll say one thing about Brooks, she's industrious. I haven't seen the place myself, but some of the escapees make the place sound like something out of a dystopia novel. Giant cranes and robotic arms, conveyor belts the length of streets, trains and convoys constantly running, pipes winding like snakes through towering buildings. The sky a shade so dark brown and polluted you can't tell day from night. Every tree burnt or ripped apart, all the lakes black from runoff. No natural life. Just a giant monument to industry. All for the production of war machines. The War Factory. A fitting name.*

*Supposedly, that's where they send the worst of the worst. Murderers. Traitors. Insurgents. POWs. All sentenced to a lifetime of hard labor, literally working almost 24 hours a day until they drop dead. It's supposed to be some sort of ironic punishment. They tried to stop the True Sons, so they spend their final days helping them build up their arsenal. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure some of the people there deserve it. But if half the rumors I've heard about that place are true...God in heaven.*

*Workers being thrown alive into the furnace or vats of oil when they can't work. Random executions just to instill fear and a sense of hopelessness in the workers. Collars that will blow your head off if you try to run. And the Trench? God, the Trench. I hope I never see it, if it's true what's down there.*

*Apparently, the place used to be a steel mill run by Koestler Industries. It was a lot smaller then, but I remember they used to be a big steel producer. If you saw a tank or APC in Iraq or Afghanistan, chances are it had some Koestler steel in it. When the True Sons took over, it was run by their only living descendant, this asshole named Lucas. Fucker called himself "The Prince of Hell" and got off on needlessly abusing and torturing the workers for no reason. Apparently, he was such a fuck-up even Brooks couldn't stand him. According to one witness, she had him replaced and when he lost his shit about it, she shoved him into a vat of hot oil. Didn't even scream. I hope he's burning in hell.*

*But honestly, I don't know if I'd rather have him in place or the one Brooks replaced him with. Colonel Ralia. We don't know much about her; I don't think anybody does. But she's damn efficient. Whatever her methods are, she's doubled what the factory outputted when Koestler was in charge. Apparently she has her own death squad that does her dirty work, while she focuses on finetuning their production. Before, the War Factory meant the True Sons had the ability to gain a serious wartime advantage on us. But now? One factory is outproducing twice as many guns, armor, and vehicles than the entirety of Europe. For every tank they lose, every jet, every helicopter, they can produce ten in a couple days.*

*That factory is critical to their war effort. And they know that. The place is guarded like Fort Knox on steroids. Tens of thousands of their finest soldiers, insane level of defenses on the air and ground. Tanks, helicopters, you name it. And even worse, all the factory's machinery can be weaponized by this wrist control Skyler has. No one, not the 34th Vipers, not Sigmus, not Argus, not even us are going to get anywhere near that place anytime soon.*