Kira Dallas's Arc

Chapter 2 of 13

A week after the deal, Kira Dallas stood in the finished research lab and checked her list. The vault dig would take years, so she built for years. She had spent seven days turning a promise into a base. Now she needed one thing more: a team and supplies ready to push down to the lower levels. Without that, the sealed tech on sublevel three stayed sealed, and her arc goal stayed a rumor behind a door. The lab was real now. Repaired brick and patched steel walls held a clean row of medical surfaces. Overhead lamps threw hard white light on a bare operating table. Mary Long crossed the floor with her folder held against her chest. She was the trained tech Zelda had brought on, and she moved like someone who counted every item twice. "Refrigeration's stable," Mary said. "Instruments logged. I signed for all of it." Kira liked her already. Mary verified things. So did Kira. Across the room, Zelda Verada watched Mary work and nodded. Zelda ran Red Hills Traders' medical side. She had signed the contract that started all this and spent every favor she owned to build the clinic beside the lab. "Clinic's stocked," Zelda said. "Beds, storage, staff. I'm out of favors. This all has to work." She looked at Kira. "You holding up your half?" "I hold up my half," Kira said. "That's the whole reason you signed with me." Zelda's mouth twitched. "Then we're good." She meant it as a fact, not a comfort. Kira took it as both. The door opened. Logan Harrison walked in, brown tabby under a battered camo hat, two fingers short on one paw. He guided the Rangers scouts through the ruins for pay, and he read broken machines by what was missing from them. He dropped a rolled map on the table. "Route's mapped," he said. "Main path's collapsed. Old blast. We go around through the alternate the robot knows." He tapped the paper. "Down is where the money is. Down is also where the ferals are. Bring lights." Kira spread her supply files beside his map. She matched his route to her crates one by one. Rope. Lamps. Sealed medical kits for anyone who got hurt below. "Team of six," she said. "Two days of supplies staged at the garage. We can move on your word." Logan studied her list. "This holds," he said. "You don't cut corners. Good. Corners are how people don't come back." Kira closed the file. Lab done. Clinic done. Route mapped. Team and supplies staged. The obstacle she had carried all week broke clean. "Then it's set," she said. "We start the dig." "We start the dig," Zelda repeated. Logan rolled his map. "One thing," he said, easy as weather. "That first feral was sealed in for centuries. There's more down there. You built a lab for the tech. Now we go take it from whatever's still breathing." He put his hat back on. "Report's due at the garage by dark."