Zelda Verada's Arc

Chapter 1 of 13

Zelda Verada had promised Red Hills Traders a working hospital, and she had until the expedition camp filled to make good on it. She spread her supply lists across a crate outside her tent. Ink covered both pages. Bandages, antibiotics, saline, sutures, blood-clotting agents. She wanted a real hospital near Vault 141, stocked and staffed, feeding medical supplies to towns that had gone years without a doctor. Most of that plan still lived in her head. Nobody knew how thin she was stretched, and she meant to keep it that way. Sarah Burks crossed the camp with a tablet already open, tapping numbers as she walked. She was a Reilly's Ranger, the one who mapped the area and cataloged every scrap of prewar tech worth saving. Zelda trusted her count more than her own. Sarah dropped onto the crate without asking. "Your list is a fantasy," Sarah said. She scrolled fast. "You want antibiotics for forty patients. We've got enough for eight. And you didn't budget for burn cases. There's always burn cases out here, Christ." "Then fix the list," Zelda said. Sarah's ears flattened. "That's the problem. You can't fix a supply gap with a pen." Her fingers slowed. "You need a whole intake system. Cold storage. A tech who won't fold when three people bleed at once. You can't be all of that alone, Zelda. Nobody can." Zelda kept her face still. Sarah had come closer to the truth than Sinclair ever had. "Give me a hard number," Zelda said. "What do I need to open?" Sarah read it out. A field unit. Refrigerated meds. Two hundred pounds of consumables. A trained hand. Zelda wrote each item, then set the pen down and pulled her radio. She had traded favors for years and never called them all at once. She did now. One contact owed her a debt from a bad winter. Zelda spent it. She named the field hospital, the drugs, the tech. She said she needed them at the camp within the week. The voice on the radio went quiet, then agreed. Six days later, a truck ground into camp. Ranger hands hauled down a desert-camo field hospital, its red cross stark against the canvas. Inside sat a metal med cabinet, its shelves packed with bandages, vials, and rows of syringes. Zelda ran her paw along the cold steel and let herself breathe. A grey tabby stepped down last. She wore blue scrubs and round glasses, a medical folder tucked against her ribs. "Mary Long," she said. "I'm your tech. They said you run a tight ship." "I run the only ship," Zelda said. Sarah watched the unloading and let out a low whistle. "You actually pulled it off." Then she frowned at her tablet. "But you burned every favor to do it. Next crisis, you've got nothing left to call." Zelda looked at the stocked cabinet and the new tech waiting for orders. The hospital stood. The debts were spent. Now everything had to work the first time.