Margo Holland's Arc

Chapter 3 of 13

The wounded man stayed unconscious for three days. Margo kept him stable with what antibiotics she had left, monitoring his vitals while Doc Henson handled the clinic downstairs. She spent the time reviewing the camera footage on loop, mapping the depot's defenses in her notebook. On the fourth morning, she ran a tissue scan during a routine wound check and stopped. The diagnostic scanner she'd salvaged months ago showed abnormal cell structures in the infection sites—not just bacteria, but something underneath. She pulled a sample and prepped it in the biosafety cabinet upstairs, then pulled her collection of mutant tissue samples from storage. The comparison took two hours on the old terminal she'd rigged to display genetic sequences. The patterns matched. Same cellular degradation. Same protein markers. Same mutation progression she'd documented from a dozen super mutant samples over the past year. Doc Henson found her standing at the preservation cabinet, staring at the two samples side by side. "It's spreading to humans," she said. Her voice sounded flat even to her own ears. "Not through bites or blood contact. Through something environmental. The mutations don't show symptoms until the infection's already systemic." She turned to face him. "That equipment at the depot—it's not just for research anymore. We need it to track this before settlements start reporting cases they can't identify." Doc Henson studied the samples for a long time. Then he pulled a set of keys from his coat pocket and handed them to her. "Third examination room has a locked cabinet. Surgical supplies, military-grade stimulants, combat medic gear from my service days. If you're going into that depot, you'll need more than override codes." He met her eyes. "And you'll need someone who knows field medicine in a firefight. I'm coming with you."