Marcus Bromley's Arc

Chapter 6 of 6

By morning the yard had guards on the fence and a hatch waiting. Marcus called the meeting inside the command tent Kira had pitched behind the equipment shop the night before. Olive canvas, sage stripes, a folding table she'd already covered with her own maps. He'd asked for the tent because it was hers. People argue less in a room they built. Marcus laid three sheets on the table. "Three jobs. One window. We split now or we trip over each other down there." He tapped the first sheet. "Tech and comms. Donovan runs it. Shielded relay on our channel, dead line on the Ranger band, ears on both water pipes." Donovan pushed off the tent pole and grinned like Marcus had handed him a present. "Oh man, you bet. I've got the relay half built already. Give me two hours and a clean power draw and I'll hear a rat cough in that shaft." Marcus moved his hand to the second sheet. "Supplies. Contracts, load-out, med stock, ammo from the locker, replacements if we burn through. Kira." Kira didn't look up from the sheet. She was already marking it. "Look, I need the armory locker inventory before I sign anything. I don't move a crate I haven't counted." "Achilles will walk you through it in twenty minutes." "Fine." She capped her pen. "You'll have contracts by noon. Signed, not verbal." He turned to the third sheet. This was the one he'd sat with longest. "Hatch team. Two down first. Medical eyes and a hand that can read a door." He looked at Zelda, then Sinclair. "You two." Zelda folded her arms. "Andy carries the card." "Andy stays in the office until the door is open on our side. You take his card down. He doesn't leave that room until you come back up." "That'll cost you later," Sinclair said. Not a warning. A fact. "Priced in." Sinclair chuckled once, dry. "Alright, friend. Zelda reads the wing, I read the door. We come up before dark either way." Zelda nodded. "I want a diagnostic wand and the AED pack staged at the hatch. Funny what survives when no one knows what they're looking at." "Take what you need." Marcus went around the table once more, naming each job and the person on it, and each one answered back with what they'd need by when. No one traded assignments. No one pushed for the hatch who wasn't already on it. Kira wrote the timings on her sheet and slid a copy to each of them. Marcus rolled the maps and set them in the file box. The teams were cut. The next problem was already waiting under the slab, and now he knew exactly whose hands would meet it first.