Kira Dallas pushed through the clinic tent flap with her red camo battleboard slung tight against her shoulder. She was here to buy a prewar diagnostic wand for Reilly's Rangers, and she did not haggle on principle. Zelda Verada stood waiting behind a vintage scale, arms folded. The wand sat on a tray between them, seal intact. Kira had already cross-referenced the manifest twice. Zelda did not reach for caps. Instead, she placed a rust-stained metal briefcase on the counter and flipped the latches. Inside were schematics, frequency notes, and a hand-drawn sketch of a buried dish. "I don't want money," Zelda said. "I want a Ranger tech assigned to my clinic for one week. Someone who can read these and tell me what's transmitting under the junkyard." Kira's tail flicked once. A tech loan was not in her authority. Kevin could push it, but Kevin was three days out. The wand was here now. She studied Zelda's face and saw the discipline that had drawn her interest in the first place — no bluff, no flinch, just a clean ask. Kira keyed her shortwave and raised Donovan O'Niel. "I need you at the clinic. One week, technical support, no questions logged." Donovan's voice came back fast and dry. "Oh man, yeah, I can do that. Frequency work? You bet. I'll bring the bench kit." He did not ask why. That was the part she trusted. Donovan arrived within the hour, headphones on, hauling a rugged electronics work table on a dolly. He set it down beside Zelda's cot row and started laying out shielded relays like he had already done the math. Zelda watched him a moment, then slid the diagnostic wand across the counter to Kira. The seal held. The manifest matched. Kira sealed the wand into her pack and stepped back into the yard sun. The deal was done — but she had just placed a Ranger inside a clinic that was hunting a live signal, and Kevin would learn about it from her, not from channels. The next call she made would have to be the hard one.

Kira Dallas crossed the yard with the wand sealed in her pack and the call to Kevin still unmade. Her shortwave chirped before she reached the fence. Donovan, fast and dry. "Boss, you need to come back. The signal Zelda's chasing — it's not random. I ran it twice." She found him hunched over the open tool kit beside the clinic cot row, headphones half off. Schematics fanned across the bench. He tapped a frequency penciled on the sketch. "That's a bunker channel. Ranger bunker channel. Hell if I know how it ended up buried under a junkyard, but it's ours." Kira set her pack down and pulled the small brown rolodex from its side pocket. She flipped past tabbed cards until her claw stopped on a brass key, scratched and worn, its symbols faded but readable to anyone who had carried one. She laid it on the schematic beside Donovan's pencil mark. The cuts matched the channel index. The symbols matched the handshake. "Confirmed," she said. Her tail did not flick. That was the discipline talking. Inside, something colder moved. A dish was broadcasting on a channel only Reilly's Rangers should know, and someone outside the Rangers had built the transmitter. A shadow crossed the tent flap. Sinclair Feldman ducked in, hands open, eyes on the key before they reached her face. "Friend," he said, quiet. "We need to talk. Before you call Kevin. Before anyone calls anyone. What's under this yard isn't just yours — and some of it Red Hills put there." Kira closed the rolodex slowly. The wand was bought. The signal was named. But the channel was compromised, Red Hills was already inside it, and the hard call to Kevin had just become a harder one. She looked at Sinclair and pointed to the bench. "Sit. Talk fast."