Kira Dallas's Arc

Chapter 7 of 7

The New Reno hire's reference was a lie. Kira sat with that fact through the dawn shift, then set it aside. The clinic hatch was scheduled for the same morning, and the vault door would not wait on a background check. She walked out to the back fence with her radio clipped to her collar and Donovan's voice already live in her ear from the shortwave post. "Logan's on channel two," Donovan said. "Every four hours, like we set. He'll relay to Kevin if anything breaks." "Keep him hot," Kira said. "I want a witness on the other end of this." Andy was crouched at the slab with his tool case open beside him. He wore his gray tactical glasses pushed up on his head and had two probes clipped to a reader. Sinclair stood a step behind him, radio pack on, watching the pillar and the two junkyard hands who had pried the concrete cap loose. Draper walked the perimeter with his Colt on his hip, checking sight lines to the fence. "Vault door's a rotary," Andy said without looking up. "Vault-Tec spec, three-stage. I have the card. I need Sinclair on the code side." Sinclair pulled the code book from his radio pack and thumbed to a marked page. "Frequency's paired to the door," he said. "They ran the release through a broadcast handshake. Cute. Also stupid." "Cute for them," Andy said. "Stupid for us if we miss the window." Kira keyed her radio. "Logan, Donovan, mark. We're at the hatch. Andy has the card. Sinclair has the code." "Copy," Donovan said. "Kevin's on relay. He wants the door time on the log." "Log it." Andy fed the card. The reader chirped once, then went flat. He pulled it, wiped the strip on his sleeve, fed it again. The chirp held. Sinclair set the frequency on his handset and thumbed the transmit key in a three-count pattern from the book. Something under the slab clicked. Then a heavier sound, iron on iron, and the hatch broke its seal with a hiss of cold air. "Stage one," Andy said. "Two more." He worked the inner ring with a hex driver from the tool case. Sinclair called the second sequence. The second bolt released. The third took longer. Andy's ears flattened, and he swore once, low. Then the door gave. "Open," Kira said into the radio. "We are open." "Logged," Donovan said. Then, a beat later, sharper: "Kira. Logan just lost channel two. Full silence at Ranger HQ. Nothing on the backup either." Kira stared down into the shaft. Cold air pushed up past her face, and somewhere below, a fan hummed on stored power. She had the door. She no longer had her witness. "Draper," she said. "Nobody in or out. Andy, Sinclair — we go down now, before whoever cut that line gets here first."