Achilles Greenburn's Arc

Chapter 7 of 9

Achilles led Sinclair and Zelda to the dish ground while Kira waited on her side of the wire. The pistol still lay on the post. Achilles walked back to the gate alone, looked at her through the chain link, and unlatched it. "Come in. We talk inside." Kira stepped through without picking up the gun. He left it where it was. That was the point of leaving it. They gathered behind the armored carrier, out of sight of the road. Achilles spread a faded prewar chart across a crate. The paper showed Vault-Tec symbols and routing lines that ran beneath the yard. He tapped one mark. "There's a medical clinic under us. Surgical tools. Drugs. Supplies that don't exist on any shelf within a hundred miles." He looked at Zelda, then at Sinclair. "Kira gets the medicine. Sinclair gets the trade. I get a yard that runs on more than scrap." Sinclair studied the chart, then nodded once. "Friend, that's a deal that holds weight. Medical pulls people through the gate. Trade keeps them coming back. One feeds the other." Zelda was already past him, two crates over, kneeling. "This place is real," she said. "I treated a man last spring who came out of a vault like this one. Same stamps." Kira took the chart in both hands and held it to the light. "Look. Vault-Tec marked their service entries with a paired stencil. Red word, yellow accent, blue accent. If your clinic is under this yard, the access pillar is above ground somewhere on this lot. They never buried the markers. Walk the fence line." She rolled the chart and handed it back. "I'll know it when I see it." They walked the perimeter for an hour. Kira found it behind a stack of rusted drums near the back fence. A concrete pillar, cracked and stained, the word CLINIC dripping in faded red and yellow and blue paint. A metal plate below it read WARNING. Achilles pressed a palm against the concrete and felt the cold of something hollow underneath. Sinclair walked the base, counting paces. "Hatch'll be within ten feet. Probably under the slab." Zelda was already pulling tarps off the drums to clear ground. Achilles brought out a strip of brass he'd kept in the tool shed and a hammer. He set the brass against the brick wall of the equipment shop, drove two nails, and scratched three names into the metal with a punch. Achilles. Kira. Sinclair. "Terms are on paper later. This holds until then." Kira read the plate and almost smiled. Sinclair clapped him once on the shoulder. The pistol still lay on the post by the gate. Marcus was still hours out. The way down was found. The digging started tomorrow.