Jacob Carter's Arc

Chapter 1 of 3

Jacob Carter spread the seventeen caravan logs across the metal table at the Ivanpath Trade Post. His paw traced the same route on each map—they all pointed to Broken Hills. Vault 116 had to be there, buried somewhere in that desert wasteland. Inside that vault was a G.E.C.K., and he needed to find it before whatever killed those people in the other vaults spread further. He packed his gear the next morning and headed to Broken Hills. The RobCo Trade Guild Office stood near the edge of the settlement, its light blue and grey walls marked with gold lettering. Jacob set up inside, claiming a corner desk. The building had power, security, and access to old trade records. It would work as his base while he searched. The HP ZBook Power G11 sat on the desk, its silver and black casing reflecting the overhead lights. Jacob powered it on and pulled up pre-war government files. Vault locations, construction records, geological surveys—everything was there. He cross-referenced the caravan logs with the vault registry. Seventeen different routes, seventeen different dates, all converging on coordinates three miles northeast. His whiskers twitched as he marked the location on his map. Outside, a 1944 Bedford OY truck rumbled past with tan and brown camouflage paint. A water treatment processor sat mounted on its flatbed, pipes and filters visible through the metal frame. Jacob watched it through the window. The G.E.C.K. was supposed to do that kind of work—turn poisoned water clean, make dead soil grow crops again. If the device in Vault 116 still functioned, he could test it against the yellowish water samples he'd collected. He could prove whether the contamination was something the G.E.C.K. could fix, or if the dimensional breach went deeper than any machine could reach.