Kira Dallas's Arc

Chapter 5 of 6

The alliance meeting broke at dusk. Kira walked the back fence with Donovan at her shoulder, the red file organizer under one arm. She had a buried clinic, a compromised channel, and three folders of Vault-Tec markings she could not read past the surface. She needed someone who could. Donovan said the name first. Marcus had said it earlier. Two recommendations from two men who agreed on almost nothing meant Andy Cerberus was the trader to see. "Oh man, Andy knows Vault-Tec wiring better than the engineers who installed it," Donovan said. "He worked salvage on three sealed sites before Red Hills hired him. If anyone can read those blueprints clean, it's him." Kira tested the seal on the folder under her arm. "He'll want a cut." "You bet he will. Nobody works for smiles out here." Kira already knew what she would offer. A flat fee would insult him. A percentage would bind him to the work. The trader post sat at the edge of the Red Hills road, the metal sign hung crooked above the door, red letters bleached but readable. Kira had verified the post against two manifests on her walk over. The inventory matched. The location matched. She crossed the lot to the small coffee hut behind the sign, green tiles on the roof, smoke threading from a back vent. Donovan had told her Andy met clients here because he trusted the owner. Kira pushed the door open. Andy sat at the back table with a wrist unit open in front of him, the green screen casting light across his glasses. He did not look up. "Logistics Officer Dallas. Donovan radioed ahead." He turned the wrist unit toward her. Vault-Tec medical schematic, live. "This is a Pip-Boy diagnostic shell. I rewrote the firmware last year. Tells me which clinic a serial number came from. Yours came from a site nobody's supposed to know exists." He closed the screen. "What's the offer?" Kira sat. She placed the folder between them and did not open it. "Fifteen percent of recovered pharmaceuticals. Sealed lots only. You verify the blueprints, you walk the site with us, you read the Vault-Tec markers we can't." Andy watched her for a long beat. "Twenty." "Seventeen. And you take payment in product, not caps. Rangers move it through my brother's network at market." He almost smiled. "Seventeen and a route slot through Kevin's run to the eastern posts." Kira extended her hand. "Done." They shook. Andy slid the wrist unit back into his coat and stood. "I'll walk the site at first light. Bring the blueprints and whatever your runner brought in. And Dallas — whoever's on that bunker channel already knows what you found. Seventeen percent buys you my reading. It doesn't buy you time." Kira left the hut with the folder closed under her arm. She had her specialist. She had also just put a Red Hills trader inside her secret.