Ruby Redfeather's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Ruby tested her first signal from the tower at dawn, flashing three short, two long, one short toward the horizon. Two days later, a trader arrived asking about servo parts. She sold him a refurbished motor controller and watched him count out caps without haggling. That told her the price was too low. She adjusted her rates and started tracking what each type of component actually sold for. Her notebook filled with numbers—what she paid, what traders would pay, and the markup that made this worth her time. Word spread faster than she expected. Ruby needed a place for bigger deals, somewhere off the main streets where she could talk numbers without drawing attention. She found The Hole in The Wall Cantina three blocks from her shop—tan and gray sandstone walls, black lettering above the door, and a back room that stayed empty most afternoons. The owner wanted fifty caps a month. Ruby offered thirty plus first pick on any coffee supplies that came through her shop. They settled at forty caps and a pound of beans every two weeks. Security came next. Ruby mounted a prewar infrared security camera on a steel pole outside the cantina's back entrance. The motion sensor still worked, and she wired it to a small alarm in her pocket that buzzed twice when someone approached. She tested it by walking the perimeter herself, adjusting the angle until it covered the full approach. Now she'd have warning before anyone reached the door. The cantina meetings brought in steady trades, but power was a problem. The grid cut out twice in her first month, killing deals when buyers couldn't inspect components properly. Ruby tracked down a military surplus helium-3 generator and hauled it to the back room. She ran the connections herself, testing each wire against the specs in her field manuals. When the lights stayed on during the next outage, she knew her network had the foundation it needed. Traders could count on her to deliver, and that reliability was worth more than any single sale.