Sarah Burks's Arc

Chapter 2 of 13

Sarah hadn't expected Marvin to come looking for her this soon. She'd just returned to her camp at the edge of East Calico Flats when she spotted him walking up the old road, carrying something wrapped in canvas. He set the bundle on her analyzer case and pulled back the canvas. Construction blueprints, yellowed with age. A jumpsuit with Vault 17 Engineering patches on the shoulders. Tool schematics she'd never seen before. Marvin's grandfather had kept everything in the old patrol station two miles east, stored in a work table with drawers that still locked. But Marvin didn't open with an offer—he opened with a price. He wanted to know why the Atomic Cats cared about Vault 17. Specifically, he wanted an introduction to their leader. Sarah felt the trap close around her. The blueprints showed sublevel three in detail—pump systems, air handlers, the biological preservation labs she'd only guessed at from incomplete manifests. Information worth more than fusion cells. But giving Marvin access to the Cats meant risking the partnership she'd just built. The leader had demanded she share everything, but they'd said nothing about bringing in outside contractors. If Marvin showed up with better intel than she'd provided, it would prove she'd been holding back. If she refused him now, he'd take the blueprints elsewhere—maybe even to the Rangers. She pulled her modified Pip-Boy from her pack and switched it to transmit mode. The radio crackled twice before the Cats' frequency came through. When the leader answered, Sarah kept her voice steady. She had a ghoul tinkerer with original construction documents, she said. He wanted to meet. The line went quiet for five seconds that felt like fifty. Then the leader gave her coordinates for a three-way meeting at dawn. Sarah switched off the radio and met Marvin's eyes. She'd made her choice—transparency over control. Now she'd find out if trust could survive complications.