Donovan O'Niel's Arc

Chapter 11 of 11

The truck rolled back toward Vault 141 by midday. Logan rode in back with the rugged link laptop open on his knees, its weathered green casing marked with the Atomic Cats insignia. The tower deal was signed, but a signature meant nothing until the nodes talked to each other. Donovan watched the road and ran the math again. Four live sites. One cap of five. He still had a choice to dodge. His field radio crackled before they reached the gate. A short message plaque dropped into the cradle of his pack set. Brad's voice, upbeat, caught in text on the little screen. "Donovan, don't be disappointed with only five nodes," it read. "Yesterday we had none. Just link our four main bases together and save one node for the future. Your team, great job." Donovan read it twice. His worry had been backward. The limit wasn't a wall. It was room to grow. At the field hospital, Mary Long met them at the door. She was the head nurse now, running the scaled-down hospital built into the vault. She waved a gray and brown tabby forward, neat in medical scrubs with a red pouch at her hip. "This is Tammy Lammens," Mary said. "Area head nurse. She covers the floor while I'm below." Tammy gave a short nod and a steady look, already counting their wounds before they spoke. "No bleeders today," Donovan said. Tammy's mouth twitched. "Good. I'll hold you to that." Then Mary turned and went back down toward Vault 141, her job waiting underground. Logan set the link laptop on a crate and pulled the F95 adapter from his jacket. "Wi-Fi link," he said. "Fancy word for a short radio bridge. Ties my relay to their tower." He wired the adapter into the garage base station first, then opened the tower network on the screen. A green light blinked. "That's the tower," he said. "Alive. We're on their backbone." He worked without hurry. Kira leaned over his shoulder, logging each step in her folder. "Which two first?" she asked. "The two that can't afford silence," Donovan said. "The vault and headquarters." Logan typed. He added Vault 141 as the first node, then Ranger HQ as the second. The screen listed them under the tower line, two rows where there had been none. "Ping them," Donovan said. Logan sent a test packet. The vault node answered in a second. HQ answered right after. Two green rows held steady. "They see each other," Logan said. "Through the tower. Real traffic, both ways." Donovan let out a breath he'd carried since Broken Hill. His base and his command could talk now, live, across the Wasteland. Two nodes down. Two main bases still open, one spare node banked for later, exactly as Brad wanted. He looked at the two glowing rows. The backbone wasn't a plan anymore. It was running.