Logan Harrison's Arc

Chapter 3 of 9

The parts had come. Logan rebuilt the keycard in three nights at his bench. He soldered the new regulator, seated the ribbon, and closed the cracked panel. The screen woke green. Now he stood at the outer door of the ruined Vault-Tec garage, the Pip-Boy strapped to his wrist. Blast scars marked the metal. Two broken windows stared like empty eyes. Behind the frame waited the inner door and the server cores he had chased for weeks. A soldier stood beside him with a light machine gun braced on its bipod. She wore green camo fatigues and a black beret, and she watched the door instead of Logan. Zelda had brought her in for muscle, and she carried herself like someone who had done this before. "Warrant Officer Danials," Zelda had said by way of introduction. Danials only nodded. Her eyes never left the seam in the metal. Zelda stepped up beside them. A grey tabby in medical scrubs trailed her, folder clutched to her chest. "Mary handles anything that comes out breathing," Zelda said. Mary Long adjusted her round glasses and said nothing. She had learned already that Zelda's plans left little room for questions. "Contacts are clean," Logan said. He read the machine by what was missing, and nothing was missing now. "It'll take the key." "Then use it," Zelda said. Logan pressed the Pip-Boy to the reader. The screen flashed. Deep in the wall, a motor caught and ground. Old gears turned for the first time in centuries. The inner door dragged sideways on a track thick with rust. Dust and stale air rolled out. Danials shifted her weight. "Movement." Something burst from the dark. It was a ghoul, skin split and glowing a sick green, arms swinging. Its eyes were two white lights. It cleared the threshold in one lunge. Mary stumbled back. Zelda pulled her clear. Logan froze with the key still raised. The machine gun barked. Danials fired a short burst that caught the ghoul square in the chest. It dropped mid-stride and slid to a stop at Logan's boots. The glowing green faded to grey. Smoke curled from the barrel. Silence returned. Logan lowered his wrist. His heart pounded against his ribs. Zelda checked Mary, then looked at the corpse. "Never boring," she said, flat. Danials worked the bolt and scanned the black opening. "That one was inside the door," she said. "Sealed in. Alive." Logan understood what that meant. The inner vault had held something for a very long time. If one feral had lived down there, others might too. The path to his server cores ran through whatever else the dark was hiding. He stepped over the dead ghoul and looked into the open vault. Cold air pushed against his face. The door stood open now. There was no closing it again. "We go slow," he said. "And we don't split up."