Brad Zaxxon's Arc

Chapter 3 of 7

Martinez was waiting at the northwest salvage site when Brad arrived, crouched beside a tarp-covered shape that hadn't been on their previous maps. She pulled back the corner to reveal a monitoring station, its metal casing still intact despite the rust creeping along its seams. Brad knelt beside it, running his hand over the control panel. The switches were corroded but legible, each one labeled with vault sector designations. Beneath the main console, a steel box held a heating systems manual with diagrams that made his chest tighten. The schematics showed thermal distribution networks for standard vault levels, but page seventeen had a handwritten note in the margin: "Sublevel monitoring requires dedicated sensor array—see installation specs." He flipped to the back and found a folded blueprint showing three underground levels, with the third marked in red ink. Martinez watched him trace the diagram with his finger. "That's what you've been looking for, isn't it? Proof the sublevel exists." Brad nodded, already thinking about the bunker structure they'd passed on the way here, its cracked walls still bearing faded Enclave markings. If the monitoring equipment had been stored there, someone had known about Vault 17's hidden level long before the bombs fell. But that same someone had hidden this gear in a camouflaged bunker instead of leaving it with the vault itself. "This changes the trading post plan," Brad said, closing the manual. He couldn't just share route information anymore, not when vault tech this specific might draw the wrong attention. Martinez raised an eyebrow but didn't argue. She'd seen enough wasteland politics to know that some intelligence needed vetting before it went public. Brad tucked the manual into his pack, the weight of it settling against his spine like a new responsibility. His trading post would still happen, but now he'd need protocols—ways to verify who was asking before he verified what they wanted to know.