Sarah Burks's Arc

Chapter 5 of 13

Sarah traced the glow with her flashlight beam. The radioactive copper wiring ran down the factory's east wall, disappearing into a crack where the concrete had split near the floor. She knelt and followed the seam with her finger, feeling cool air push through the gap. The leader appeared beside her with a pry bar. Together they wedged it into the crack and pulled. The concrete gave way, revealing a rusted metal chute angled downward into darkness. Green residue dripped from the sides, and the copper wiring continued along its interior surface. Sarah's Pip-Boy spiked to dangerous levels. She pulled back and gestured for the leader to follow her to safer ground. "There's a whole structure behind this wall. Something they built to hide the access point." The leader studied the opening, then the factory floor. "We need to see what's down there before we bring the full team." Sarah followed the wall's outline with her analyzer, mapping the hidden structure's dimensions. It extended twenty feet in each direction—too large to be just a maintenance shaft. They found the entrance behind a collapsed conveyor belt: a doorway sealed with corrugated metal, its frame decorated with faded tile work. The leader pulled the metal away to reveal a subway station entrance, complete with boarded ticket booths and a rusted turnstile. The station had never been connected to any transit system. It was pure camouflage, built to make anyone who found it assume they'd stumbled onto pre-war infrastructure instead of Vault-Tec's deliberate concealment. Sarah descended the stairs, her flashlight cutting through decades of dust. At the platform's end, she found a blueprint tube wedged between tiles. The papers inside showed the factory's original layout—but someone had drawn a thick red X through the eastern section with a handwritten note: "Basement access removed from official records per Vault-Tec Security Directive." Sarah climbed back to where the leader waited and handed over the tube. "They built a fake subway station to hide the entrance. Anyone who found it would think it was just leftover transit planning, not a path to sublevel three." The leader examined the annotated blueprint, their expression shifting from curiosity to calculation. "This changes our approach. If Vault-Tec went this far to hide the access point, the chamber below isn't just dangerous—it's something they knew would draw attention." Sarah felt the weight of that trust, the leader sharing tactical concerns instead of keeping her at arm's length. She'd proven the value of her analysis, and now they were planning as partners. The leader rolled up the blueprint and met her eyes. "We map the full descent route tomorrow. Just you, me, and Marvin. Before we risk anyone else."