Zelda Verada's Arc

Chapter 3 of 13

The rangers cleared the garage at dawn. By mid-morning the entrance was quiet and safe. Zelda walked the scarred storeroom where the raiders had never reached. A failing preservation unit sat against the back wall, its seal cracked, its cooling fan dead. Inside a glass cabinet, metal containers held pale tissue samples. The frost on the glass was thawing. Zelda counted seventeen. They would rot within the hour. She keyed her radio. "Mary. Bring the medical cooler to the storeroom. Now." Mary Long arrived fast, scrubs neat, glasses fogged from the run. She carried the cooler in both arms like something breakable. Zelda had spent her last favors to bring Mary here. Watching her work, she knew the cost was right. Mary set the cooler down and studied the cabinet without flinching. "Seals are shot," Mary said. "We move them cold or we lose them." She snapped on gloves. "Hand me the containers one at a time. Don't let them warm." They worked together. Zelda lifted each metal container from the shelf. Mary checked the label, then packed it into the cooler's ice bed. One. Five. Ten. Zelda's paws grew stiff from the cold glass. Neither of them stopped. They saved all seventeen before the last frost melted from the shelf. Mary sealed the cooler and let out a breath. "That's the whole set. Viable. Barely." Zelda nodded. Samples like these meant real medical research for the hospital. It was another win to show Marcus and Achilles. Proof the plan produced results. Then Sarah stepped through the doorway. She had been surveying the site since the rangers cleared it. Sarah ran data for Reilly's Rangers, and she read old systems the way Zelda read wounds. She held a stack of black-and-red files against her chest. Her fingers tapped the top folder fast. "Zelda," Sarah said. Her voice was low. "I found these on a desk in the back. They match the samples." She turned the top page. A red biohazard mark stared up. "F.E.V. Research. Vault 141 Lab." Zelda took the file. The lab notes were dense with dosages and column charts. She did not know the term, but the biohazard symbol needed no translation. "F.E.V.," Zelda said. "What is that?" Sarah laughed once, without humor. "That's the question, isn't it." She tapped the page. "What kind of medical experiments did they run down here?" Her eyes stayed on the folder. "Bad ones. The paperwork alone." She looked up. "People got hurt for this data. A lot of them." Zelda held the cooler in one paw and the dossier in the other. She had come for tissue samples to build a hospital. She had gotten them. But the files changed what the samples were. Not just research material now. Evidence of something the vault had tried to bury. "We keep both," Zelda said. "And we find out what we're carrying."