Sarah Burks's Arc

Chapter 4 of 8

The samples were saved. Mary, the trained tech who worked Zelda's field hospital, had raced up with cold packs and sealed the dying tissue into a hard case. Now she stood beside Sarah in the ruined garage, clutching her folder of medical files. The storeroom was clear. But Sarah still needed the way down to sublevel three, where the medical labs and the G.E.C.K. waited. She swept her light past the dead ghoul at the door, the one the guard officer had shot when the vault opened. "Weapons ready," Sarah said. Logan moved up first. The Atomic Cats tech had guided the Rangers scouts through these ruins for weeks, reading broken machines like other people read faces. He crouched at the far wall and studied a stairwell mouth choked with rubble. "Right entrance to the lower level's collapsed," Logan said. He pointed at a beam bent flat across the stairs. "That's not raider work. Old blast brought it down. We're not digging through that today." He said it plain, the way he said everything, no wasted breath. Sarah's stomach sank. One route to the labs, gone. She turned, searching the dark for another door. A panel on the opposite wall clicked. Something behind it stirred. A rounded white shell rolled out on stiff limbs, a red cross painted on its chest, one arm ending in a needle. A medical robot, dormant for centuries, now waking. Its instrument arm swung toward Mary. Sarah stepped between them and raised her pistol. "Doctor," the robot said. Its voice crackled. It stopped, waiting. Mary froze. The needle hung inches from her folder. Sarah's finger tightened on the trigger. If she fired, the shot might bring more ferals from the vault. If she waited, the machine might inject Mary with whatever it held. Sarah lowered her gun a hair. "I'm a doctor," she said. The robot's lens flickered blue. "Present identification." Sarah reached into her jacket pouch, past the tech tools, and drew the card she had carried since the bunker archives. A prewar physician ID. Her own name, printed on institutional white. She held it flat to the lens. A thin light scanned the barcode. Seconds stretched. Mary didn't breathe. "Dr. Sarah Burks. Access approved," the robot said. The needle arm folded back. "Standing by for medical orders." Mary let out a shaking breath and stepped clear. Sarah kept the card up. Her mind was already racing. This machine had run these halls before the war. It knew the layout. It answered to a doctor's credentials. "Med-Serve," Sarah said, testing the word. "The right stair is blocked. Is there another route to sublevel three?" The robot rotated, lens fixed on her. "Affirmative. Alternate access exists. Doctor clearance required at the inner checkpoint." Sarah pocketed the ID. She had lost one road down and gained a guide who would only obey her. Now she had to follow a centuries-old machine deeper, on trust she couldn't verify.