Jon Harrison's Arc

Chapter 6 of 8

Jon climbed down from the hospital's second floor and headed back toward the collapsed tent. The photograph sat heavy in his jacket pocket—proof that someone still alive knew his old identity well enough to send Kellerman after him. He needed to examine the investigator's equipment more carefully. He found the whiteboard first, half-buried under the torn canvas. Kellerman had divided it into two sections: investigation notes on the left, connections on the right. Photographs covered the bottom—Jon's face appeared in three of them, each showing him at different locations around Calico Flats. But one photo stood out. A grainy newspaper clipping pinned to the corner showed a pre-war crime scene with three figures visible: Jon in the foreground, Kellerman to the side, and a third person in the background near a doorway. Someone had circled the third figure in red marker and written a single word beneath it: "Client." Jon pulled the clipping free and held it up to the light. The background figure was blurred but distinctive—a woman in a long coat, face partially turned away. He recognized the posture, the way she held herself at an angle to avoid direct camera exposure. Professional surveillance training. The investigation notes on the whiteboard confirmed it: "Client provided initial dossier. Payment structure suggests institutional backing, not personal vendetta. Follow-up contact scheduled for 2281—never happened." Kellerman's trail had gone cold because something from Sierra had killed him before he could report back. Jon swept debris away from the tent's corner and found what he'd been looking for—a steel-hinged trap door built into the concrete foundation beneath the canvas. Kellerman had constructed a cache, probably to protect evidence from scavengers. Jon pried it open. Inside lay duplicate files, backup photographs, and a sealed envelope marked "Emergency Protocol." He tore it open. The letter named the client directly: someone Jon had worked with years ago, before he'd disappeared into the wasteland. Someone who knew exactly what he'd been searching for at Sierra Army Depot, and who wanted those files badly enough to hire an investigator using Jon's old identity as bait. The woman in the photograph wasn't just tracking him—she was racing him to the same encrypted data, and now that Kellerman was dead, she'd have to come for it herself.