Jon Harrison's Arc

Chapter 1 of 8

Jon spread the salvaged contractor's manifest across the workbench, comparing redacted budget line items against the sensor frequencies he'd mapped at Sierra Army Depot. He needed somewhere the Rangers wouldn't stumble across his decryption work, and somewhere the Cats wouldn't ask questions about his real target. The old construction office sat two blocks behind the SuperMart, brick facade crumbling just enough to look abandoned. Jon had rewired the second floor over three nights, running power from a salvaged transformer he'd buried in the rubble field next door. The windows stayed dark. Anyone passing would see another dead building in a settlement full of them. He mounted the signal relay on the roof at dawn, its wooden case weathered to match the rest of the decay. The blinking lights faced inward where only he could see them. Telephone wire ran down through a ventilation shaft, connecting to the jury-rigged decryption rig he'd assembled from depot components and scavenged circuit boards. The relay would intercept Sierra's automated defense signals, feeding encrypted packets directly to his workstation. The SuperMart's faded sign blocked the sightline from the main road. Jon tested the relay's positioning one last time, then climbed down and locked the office door behind him. The Rangers thought he was mapping rubble. The Cats thought he was identifying salvage. Neither would look for a workshop hidden behind a grocery store that hadn't sold food in two hundred years.