Rosie ‘Rustbucket’'s Arc

Chapter 11 of 16

Rosie stepped out of the abandoned building with the blueprint folded in her pocket and sixty-three part numbers logged in her notebook. The man in the faded uniform had given her what she needed to understand the system. Now she had to decide what to do with it. She was halfway back to the scrapyard when she heard footsteps behind her. The man had followed her out, carrying a document that looked older than anything else she'd seen him translate. He held it up so she could see the stamps and seals pressed into yellowed paper. "I can keep the Ravens out," he said. "There's an access sequence buried in these texts. A lockdown protocol that seals the distribution system from unauthorized removal." He unrolled the document carefully. It was a deed — pre-war ownership papers for the old station building itself, complete with mechanical authorization codes printed along the margins. "But I want something in return. Control of the station. Legal claim to the building and everything in it." He pointed toward the rusted police station that still stood two blocks from the old terminal. "That's where the municipal records were kept. You get me access to the deed vault in there, I'll activate the lockdown before the Ravens pull a single turbine. But afterward, the station and its systems belong to me." Rosie studied the document in his hands. He'd found a way to stop the Ravens from stripping the power grid — but only if she gave him the keys to control it himself. She could let the Ravens take the equipment and salvage what she could from the chaos, or she could trade one owner for another and hope this man kept his word. Either way, the cache wouldn't stay neutral ground. She looked at the deed, then at the police station with its locked vault of pre-war records. "Show me the lockdown sequence first," she said. "Prove you can do what you claim. Then we'll talk about access." The man smiled and rolled the document back up. "Fair enough. But you're running out of time to decide. The Ravens will break through to the loading bay by tomorrow night."