Marcus Bromley's Arc

Chapter 5 of 5

Andy ate cold beans in the shop under a mechanic's eye while Marcus crossed the yard to find Achilles at the workbench. Marcus set the folder down on a clean corner. "We open the hatch tomorrow," he said. "Before that, we need men on the fence who don't ask what's under it. Real guards. Paid, vetted, ours." Achilles wiped his hands on a rag and closed the engine cover. "Then we hire today. The barrier crew can't watch and build." They moved to the coffee hut with the green tile roof. Marcus liked it because the owner kept his mouth shut and the traders drifted through by noon. Marcus wrote the call on a scrap and read it back. "Yard hiring. Guard work. Steady caps. No questions asked, no questions answered." Achilles listened and shook his head once. "Add a line. We test before we pay." Marcus added it. He handed the scrap to a trader who was leaving for Red Hills road and pressed two caps into his palm for the trouble. Two more traders took copies before the pot cooled. Back at the shop Achilles pulled a red file box from under the bench and cleared the desk. Marcus laid out a blank sheet. "Qualifications first," Achilles said. "One. Can hold a post through a full watch without wandering. Two. Can shoot straight at forty yards. Three. Doesn't drink on shift. Four. Doesn't talk about what he sees." Marcus wrote each line in order. "Add a fifth," he said. "No standing debts to Red Hills or the Rangers. We check names against the ledger." Achilles nodded and set a green-and-grey codebook on the desk beside the sheet. "And they learn the channel discipline out of this. No open bands. No plain names." They built the handbook in one sitting. Post rotations, two hours on, one off. Challenge phrases from the codebook, changed at dusk. What to do if a stranger showed a Vault-Tec marker. What to do if a runner came bleeding. Marcus wrote the last rule himself: any guard who opens the back gate without a second key stands down and gives up his pay. Achilles read the page and set it in the red file box under the tab marked NEW HIRES. By late afternoon Sinclair came through the gate with three men behind him and a fourth walking alone. "Word travels," Sinclair said. "These three worked my northern line last winter. The fourth walked in from Red Hills road with your scrap in his hand. I don't vouch for him. I vouch for the others." He set his pack down and looked at Marcus straight. "Guilt's a lousy negotiating partner, friend. I'm giving you the good ones because you'll need them before the week's out." Marcus tested all four against the sheet by dusk. Three passed. The fourth failed the shooting line and left with a day's caps for his walk. The yard had its guards. It also had Sinclair standing at the fence, watching the barrier crew work, and knowing exactly what door they were building around.