Achilles Greenburn's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

Achilles mixed the slab by hand near the heavy repair garage. The dish sat covered under a tarp behind him. He poured the first bucket along the form boards and smoothed it with a trowel. The work was steady. The work was his. Halfway through the second pour, his trowel scraped something hard. He stopped. He set the bucket down and dug with his fingers. A boot came up. Then a leg bone in rotted camouflage pants. A scout jacket clung to the ribs. A faded patch marked the shoulder. A gray pack still hung from one arm. He pulled the pack free and opened it on the dirt. Inside sat a shortwave radio, brown casing scratched, amber dial cracked but whole. A notebook curled with damp. Pages of frequencies. Coordinates. A hand-drawn map of the yard with an X right where the dish had been buried. The scavenger had been here for the dish. He had died before he could dig it up. A hum drifted in above the fence. Achilles looked up. A round camouflaged eyebot drifted across the yard on lazy thrusters, lenses turning. Watching. He grabbed the tarp edge and pulled it tighter over the dish. The shop cat in the blue jumpsuit padded out from the garage and froze, ears flat, eyes on the drifting machine. Achilles keyed his radio. Marcus answered on the second click. Achilles spoke low. He had found a body in the slab. The body had a map. The dish was not lost. Someone had sent a man for it. There was an eyebot in the yard right now. Marcus was quiet a beat. Then: "Cover it. Keep pouring. I'll handle the eyes. We're not building a vault anymore. We're building bait." Achilles set the notebook in his jacket and picked up the trowel again. The slab would still go down today. But the dish under it was no longer a secret to protect. It was a signal someone was already listening for. The yard had stopped being a junkyard the moment he hit metal. Now it had stopped being his alone.