Jimmy Turro's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

Jimmy pulled the circuit board from Node Seven's relay box and held it up to the light. Three solder points had cracked from heat stress. He'd fixed the wiring, but the damage meant parts needed replacing. The Atomic Cats had salvage rights to old military sites, but they didn't stock the specific components he needed. He packed his toolkit and headed east, where traders moved between settlements carrying gear from a dozen different sources. If the network was going to reach every Ranger outpost, he needed to know where to find parts when towers failed. The coffee hut appeared after an hour of walking, tan and orange sandstone walls standing against the wind. Black letters spelled out "Terra Brew" across the front. Jimmy pushed through the door and found three people hunched over a table covered in circuit diagrams. They looked up, then went back to their work. He ordered coffee and sat near them, pulling out his broken board. One of them glanced over and pointed at the cracked solder joints. "Heat stress. You need thermal paste under those components." The conversation started simple—component ratings, signal loss, power distribution. By the second cup of coffee, Jimmy had learned about a trader who stocked military-grade capacitors and another who specialized in antenna hardware. He left the hut with four names and two locations written on a scrap of paper. The network needed more than just towers—it needed supply lines, people who knew where to find parts when systems failed. Jimmy walked past a billboard advertising radio frequencies, olive green and tan camouflage pattern with white letters: "Ranger Radio FM 87.9 & 92.5." Someone else was already using his network, treating it like something real. The sight made him stop and stare. Rangers were listening, tuning in, connecting across distances he'd never walk. Near the road, metal rings spiraled upward in a monument that caught the afternoon sun. Light bounced off each ring, creating patterns that shifted as he moved. Someone had built it to celebrate the network, to mark what connecting people across the wasteland meant. Jimmy stood there, watching light dance across metal. The dream wasn't just his anymore. Rangers were calling each other, traders were talking about signal relays, and people were building monuments to invisible voices traveling through air. He adjusted his pack and started walking. The Skyward Signal Tower would reach higher than any node, but first he needed those parts.