Donovan O'Niel's Arc

Chapter 6 of 11

Donovan ran the disc to the field hospital and left it with Zelda. On the walk back, his legs ached and his radio hissed with nothing useful. The base ran on patrols now, perimeter sweeps, and endless reports. His people needed a breath. So did he. He turned toward the coffee hut near the trade post, where traders and off-duty Rangers gathered between fights. The hut sat warm and loud, its green roof dripping from an early rain. Inside, mugs clattered and voices overlapped. Logan Harrison leaned against the counter, hat pushed back, nursing black coffee. Logan ran tech salvage for the Atomic Cats and had opened the vault's inner doors himself. Donovan trusted his hands on a machine more than most. Logan nodded without wasting a word. "Donovan. You look like a dead battery." "Feel like one," Donovan said. He dropped onto a stool. Across the room, Mary Long worked her way through the crowd. She was Head Nurse at the vault now, calm in blue scrubs, round glasses catching the light. She usually carried her medical folder. Tonight she carried something else. Mary set a polished tablet on the counter and turned it so everyone could see. The screen glowed with team logos and bright game-day stats. "Found this in a crate of salvage," she said. "Still charged. Still pulling a broadcast feed." A trader whistled. Mary tapped it twice. "Somebody put a bigger screen in the back." Donovan's ears pricked. A live broadcast feed meant a working signal, out here, where he'd fought ten-meter dead zones for weeks. He followed the crowd to the back wall. A large retro monitor hung there, framed in chipped yellow casing. Logan was already behind it, tracing the wire with two fingers, the ones he still had. "Reads a relay somewhere close," Logan said. "Prewar node. Feeding the whole hut." The screen flared to life. Players ran a green field in sharp color. The hut erupted. Traders pounded the counter. Rangers who hadn't smiled in days laughed and shouted calls. Logan leaned back, dry. "World ends, and this still airs." Donovan stared past the game at the signal itself. Clean. Strong. Repeating. Kira Dallas stepped in from the rain, tactical glasses beaded with water. The Rangers' logistics officer verified everything and trusted almost nothing. She watched the cheering room, then the screen, then Donovan's face. "Hah. You're not watching the game," she said. "You're watching the pipe that carries it." "There's a live relay feeding this hut," Donovan said. "Prewar. Still broadcasting. If I can tap its node, I've got a network backbone I didn't build myself." Kira's cadence slowed. "Find the source, and every outpost on my supply line could share it." She pulled out a pad. "I'll log it. But I don't celebrate until you've got the node in your hands." The room cheered a touchdown. Donovan barely heard it. He had a new target now, and a reason to chase it before dawn.