Jacob Carter spread the seventeen caravan logs across the metal table at the Ivanpath Trade Post. His paw traced the same route on each map—they all pointed to Broken Hills. Vault 116 had to be there, buried somewhere in that desert wasteland. Inside that vault was a G.E.C.K., and he needed to find it before whatever killed those people in the other vaults spread further. He packed his gear the next morning and headed to Broken Hills. The RobCo Trade Guild Office stood near the edge of the settlement, its light blue and grey walls marked with gold lettering. Jacob set up inside, claiming a corner desk. The building had power, security, and access to old trade records. It would work as his base while he searched. The HP ZBook Power G11 sat on the desk, its silver and black casing reflecting the overhead lights. Jacob powered it on and pulled up pre-war government files. Vault locations, construction records, geological surveys—everything was there. He cross-referenced the caravan logs with the vault registry. Seventeen different routes, seventeen different dates, all converging on coordinates three miles northeast. His whiskers twitched as he marked the location on his map. Outside, a 1944 Bedford OY truck rumbled past with tan and brown camouflage paint. A water treatment processor sat mounted on its flatbed, pipes and filters visible through the metal frame. Jacob watched it through the window. The G.E.C.K. was supposed to do that kind of work—turn poisoned water clean, make dead soil grow crops again. If the device in Vault 116 still functioned, he could test it against the yellowish water samples he'd collected. He could prove whether the contamination was something the G.E.C.K. could fix, or if the dimensional breach went deeper than any machine could reach.

Jacob needed boots first—the kind that wouldn't fall apart in desert heat. He walked through Broken Hills until he found a trader with a pair of reinforced hiking boots, tan leather with thick rubber soles. He tested the ankle support, checked the tread pattern, and counted out caps. Next came water—six canteens, enough for three days if he rationed. He filled each one and lined them up on his desk at the Trade Guild Office. Then he pulled out his notebook and wrote down everything he knew about Vault 116's location: coordinates, depth estimates, possible entry points. Seventeen caravan logs had led him here. Now he had to walk three miles northeast and start looking for a door buried in sand. But walking blind into the wasteland was stupid. Jacob needed scouts—people who could search grid patterns while he tracked their reports. He climbed onto the Trade Guild Office roof and installed a radio transmission tower, bolting the metal framework to the concrete. The KRS1 Radio Broadcast Station would let him receive signals from anyone he sent out to search distant regions. He tested the frequency range twice, then wrote down the coordinates where reception dropped off. If someone found a vault entrance, they could call it in before nightfall. Power failures would kill everything. Jacob walked outside and found a generator rusting behind a storage shed. The DuroMax XP11000iH still had fuel in its tank. He cleaned the spark plugs, replaced a cracked fuel line, and pulled the starter cord. The engine coughed, then caught. He ran a cable through the wall to his computer setup inside. If the main grid failed, his vault-tracking data wouldn't disappear with it. He needed one more thing—official records. Jacob found the South Western Regional Land Management Office at the edge of the settlement, a one-story building with wood, brick, and concrete walls that looked like they'd survived the bombs. Inside, metal filing cabinets lined the walls. He pulled drawers open until he found pre-war government documents: land surveys, construction permits, geological reports. Vault 116 appeared on a permit dated 2076, with depth specifications and foundation blueprints. Jacob photographed every page with his Pip-Boy, cross-referenced the coordinates with his caravan logs, and marked the exact search zone on his map. Everything pointed to the same spot. Tomorrow, he'd start digging.

Jacob stood at the edge of his search zone, three miles northeast of the Trade Guild Office. The ground here looked wrong—too flat, too uniform. He dropped to one knee and brushed sand away from a section of concrete. His claws scraped against pre-war construction material, the kind used for vault entrances. He pulled out his radiation meter and swept it across the surface. The readings spiked in a geometric pattern, just like the fractals he'd found in the other vaults. This was it. Vault 116 was directly below him, and whatever had arranged those bodies in groups of seven was probably still inside. But the G.E.C.K. was down there too, and he'd come too far to stop now. He needed help—specialists who tracked vaults for a living. Back in Broken Hills, a wooden tower stood against the desert sky, stacked planks rising high with bold text painted across the top. The sign advertised vault location archives and expedition planning. Jacob walked inside and found filing cabinets full of vault coordinates, structural diagrams, and expedition reports. He pulled three folders on nearby vaults and spread them across a table. Each one listed entry methods, structural weak points, and radiation levels. Vault 116 would have the same basic layout. He photographed the pages and added the data to his notes. Outside, a bronze statue caught his eye—an NCR soldier and an Arizona Ranger shaking hands on a blue and red marble base. Names of successful vault expeditions covered the sides. Jacob counted them: forty-three vaults opened, thirty-one cleared of threats, twelve with working technology recovered. The G.E.C.K. wasn't listed, but pre-war water purifiers and medical equipment were. People had gone into vaults before and come back with something useful. He could do the same. Jacob walked to a weathered brick building with a wood and tile roof. The 37th Aero Squadron Bunker served food and drinks to travelers passing through. Inside, three different groups sat at tables—caravan guards, scavengers, a trader counting caps. He listened to their conversations. One scavenger mentioned finding a vault door jammed half-open near the eastern ridge. Another talked about hearing mechanical sounds underground. Jacob pulled out his map and marked both locations. Someone here might know about Vault 116's entrance mechanism, or what kind of tools could breach a sealed door. He ordered water and sat down to wait for the right conversation.

Jacob left the 37th Aero Squadron Bunker and walked toward the settlement's eastern quarter. His boots kicked up dust with each step. A metal structure caught his attention—the Broken Hills Water Tower stood against the pale sky, its frame showing rust and pre-war construction. He stopped beneath it and looked up. Someone had bolted pipes and valves to the supports, probably to distribute water to nearby buildings. But the main tank sat empty, bone-dry. Jacob pulled out his notebook and wrote down the tower's height, the pipe diameter, and the valve positions. If Vault 116's G.E.C.K. actually worked, this tower could become the center of a water distribution system. The settlement would need infrastructure like this to turn purified water into something people could use. He ran his claws along one of the support beams, testing its strength. The metal held firm. Good enough for now. He moved on, scanning the landscape for reference points. A stone tower rose against the horizon—weathered blocks stacked high with bleached bones at its peak. Jacob walked toward it, counting his steps. Four hundred and twelve paces from the water tower. He circled the structure twice, examining the stonework. Someone had built this before the bombs, maybe after. The bones looked sun-dried, picked clean. He checked his map coordinates against the tower's position. If vault entrances followed pre-war survey patterns, landmarks like this would mark sector boundaries. He photographed the tower from three angles and wrote down its exact distance from his search zone. Past the tower, a cluster of agave plants grew from cracked earth. Jacob knelt beside the nearest one and examined the broad grey-green leaves. The flower stalk reached higher than his head. He pulled out a knife and cut into the base. Clear liquid dripped onto the ground. His scouts would need water sources like this when they searched remote grid sections. He marked the agave cluster on his map and counted seventeen plants total. Enough to supply a two-person team for three days if they knew how to extract it properly. A concrete structure jutted from the sand ahead—thick steel blast doors set into cracked walls. Jacob recognized the Brotherhood of Steel insignia welded to the entrance. The bunker had been stripped clean, doors hanging open. He stepped inside and let his eyes adjust to the shadows. Empty weapon racks lined one wall. Broken terminals sat on metal desks. He pulled open a filing cabinet and found nothing but rust stains. But the bunker's foundation went deep, built to the same specifications as vault construction. Jacob measured the wall thickness and door frame dimensions. Vault 116 would have similar reinforcement patterns. He added the measurements to his notes and walked back into the light. Three landmarks documented. Three more pieces of data pointing him toward the G.E.C.K.

Jacob spread seventeen caravan logs across his workbench at the Trade Post and cross-referenced each coordinate against his vault entrance readings. The patterns matched. Every radiation spike he'd measured pointed to the same hundred-meter radius. He marked the exact center point on his map with red ink, then checked it twice more. Vault 116 sat directly beneath that spot, and now he had proof three different sources confirmed it. His tail flicked once as he filed the logs into his documentation folder. The entrance was real. The G.E.C.K. was within reach. He just needed to figure out how to get inside without ending up arranged against a wall in groups of seven. He carried a silvery-green agave plant outside and set it near the entrance. The sharp spines and sand-dusted leaves looked right for the desert. Wasteland scouts passed through here twice a week, and they'd need to know he meant business. The plant made the place look less like a hiding spot and more like an actual operation. Jacob stepped back and examined it. Good enough. Past the entrance, he started stacking stone rings into a tower. Each ring marked something—the first vault he'd searched, the fractals he'd decoded, the caravan logs that confirmed the coordinates. He carved dates into the stone with his knife. Seventeen discoveries, seventeen rings. The tower grew taller as he worked. By the time he placed the last ring, the structure stood higher than his head. Anyone who walked past would see it. Proof that he was getting closer. Inside his workspace, he cleared shelves and arranged his journals against the wall. Every measurement, every radiation reading, every coordinate that led to Vault 116. He stacked them in order—Cedar Falls, the three empty vaults, the fractal patterns, the water samples, the caravan logs. The evidence filled three shelves. He stood back and looked at it all. The breakthrough was real. The coordinates were confirmed. The G.E.C.K. was directly beneath Broken Hills, and he had the data to prove it. Now he just needed to plan the entry without getting killed by whatever lived down there.

Jacob's newest radiation meter cracked in half when he dropped it testing the confirmed coordinates. The needle had been jumping between seven and fourteen rads, exactly what his calculations predicted for Vault 116's entrance depth. But his claws slipped on the casing and the device hit rock, splitting the calibration chamber clean through. He stared at the broken pieces in his paws. Sixteen other meters sat back at the Trade Post, but this one had the sensitivity range he needed for underground mapping. Without it, he couldn't measure radiation gradients as he descended. The breakthrough location was confirmed, the entry plan was ready, but now he'd have to rebuild the detector from scratch before he could safely proceed. His tail went still. He'd been so close to starting the actual descent. He walked back toward his base and spotted what looked like a tunnel entrance cut into the rock face. Metal supports framed the opening, and a faded Vault-Tec logo marked the blast door. Jacob's ears perked up. He pulled out his working radiation meter and checked the readings. Three rads. Normal background levels. His tail drooped. He walked closer and saw the metal supports had rusted through completely. The concrete walls had crumbled inward, blocking the passage with debris. Someone had painted the Vault-Tec logo on recently—the yellow paint was barely faded. Scavengers had built a fake entrance to throw vault hunters off track. Jacob kicked a chunk of concrete and watched it tumble down the pile. He'd wasted twenty minutes checking coordinates against a decoy. Outside his workspace, he found a weathered stone pillar half-buried in the sand. Deep cracks ran through the surface, and rust-colored dust coated the faded inscriptions. Jacob knelt beside it and traced the markings with one claw. Pre-war survey marker, probably. The inscriptions were too worn to read completely. He'd passed this pillar fourteen times and never stopped to examine it properly. His pattern obsession had kept him focused on radiation readings and coordinates, but he'd missed an obvious landmark that might have helped triangulate vault locations months ago. He stood and brushed the dust off his paws. Another mistake. Another delay. He walked to a reflecting pool near his workspace and crouched beside the smooth stone rim. The clear water mirrored the sky above, showing clouds drifting past. Jacob splashed water on his face and watched the ripples distort his reflection. The broken radiation meter sat in his pack. The fake tunnel had cost him time. The stone pillar proved he'd been blind to useful data. He'd built seventeen meters, documented three vaults, decoded fractal patterns, and confirmed Vault 116's exact location. But carelessness and tunnel vision kept pushing the G.E.C.K. further out of reach. He dried his face with his sleeve and stood. The detector could be rebuilt. The mistakes could be documented. The descent would happen, just not today.