Achilles Greenburn's Arc

Chapter 4 of 5

Achilles carried the dead man's pack into the empty side room behind the shop. Pale light fell through two broken windows. Scrap metal lay piled along the walls. He set the pack on the floor and stared at the cold radio inside. The channel number on that dial would not leave his head. He knew it. He knew it from before the yard, before Marcus, before any of this. A bunker channel out of an old broadcast network he had once worked under a different name. He had never told Marcus. He had buried that life like the dish. He knelt and pulled a small metal book from the bottom of his tool chest. The cover was scratched. The symbols on it were old broadcast marks. He opened it to a page he had not touched in years. The channel was listed. The handler call sign was listed. A field team he had once known by voice. A dry hand of dust shifted on the floor. In the corner sat what was left of a forgotten survivor — tattered jacket, red pack, bones gone quiet. Achilles had pulled the body in here months ago and never logged it. He looked at it now like a warning he had ignored. His radio buzzed. Not Marcus. A clipped woman's voice he did not know. "Look. You're broadcasting on a channel you shouldn't have. I need to know who I'm talking to before I drive through your gate." Kira Dallas. She named a verify code from the book in his hand. He matched it. He answered. When the channel closed, Achilles sat back against the peeling wall. The secret was not a secret anymore. Someone with real reach was coming, and she was coming because of who he used to be, not what Marcus had built. The trader he had waited for would walk through the gate. But not for the reason he had ever planned.