Margo Holland's Arc

Chapter 2 of 13

Margo was organizing her new workspace on the hospital's second floor when the commotion started downstairs. Boots on tile, voices sharp with urgency, then Doc Henson calling her name. She grabbed her medical bag and headed down. A man lay sprawled across the entrance floor, his breathing shallow and wet. Blood soaked through makeshift bandages on his chest and left leg. Someone had dragged him from the homeless camp outside—she could see the trail of red leading back through the doorway to the cluster of tents beyond. A battered military camera hung around his neck on a frayed cord, its lens cracked but the power indicator still blinking green. Behind him in the street sat a desert-camouflaged kubelwagen, its engine ticking as it cooled. Margo dropped to her knees and checked his vitals. Gunshot wounds, at least twelve hours old, infection already setting in. She worked fast—pressure on the chest wound, stims from her bag, antibiotics she couldn't really spare. Doc Henson brought her supplies without being asked. The man's eyes fluttered open as she stabilized him, and his hand fumbled for the camera. "Depot," he whispered. "Turrets... active. All of it... still working." His fingers found the playback button before he passed out again. The camera's small screen lit up with grainy footage—automated turrets tracking movement, laser tripwires in corridors, defense systems that should have been dead for decades. Margo felt her chest tighten. Her override codes would get her past security locks, but not past active weapons. She'd planned for a salvage run, not a combat operation. Doc Henson leaned over her shoulder, watching the footage loop. "That's why you needed the workspace," he said quietly. "You were going there." Margo met his eyes and made a choice. She needed help now, the kind that required full truth. "I still am," she said. "But I can't do it alone anymore."