Chapter 9: Echoes in the Dark
Dawn came slowly to Vault 9X, filtering through the lattice of ventilation shafts and casting grey patterns on broken floor tiles. The sickly stale tang of condensation hung in the air as Adam opened his eyes. Nia was already awake, standing by the infirmary cot, gently pressing a hot compress to the sleeping woman's pale forehead. The faint hum of the auxiliary systems and the click of the monitor's blinking green light were the only sounds.
He rubbed the back of his neck and rose. The past night's work weighed on him. Panels had been carefully cabled out to the surface through the ventilation tunnel while Nia kept watch. Now, sunlight was slowly creeping across the dusty streets above, and he hoped some spark of power would soon pulse through the vault's veins.
Stepping into the corridor, Adam flexed his hand. The gauntlet's inner coils felt cold and brittle now. Diagnostics popped up:
Gauntlet charge: 9%. Passive recovery: Inactive. Core fatigue: Critical.
He winced, a jolt of static running down his arm like an electric warning. Every effort he'd made last night — powering up consoles, bringing the solar panels into play — had cost him. Without nanite self-repairs, the subdermal matrix was slowly wearing itself apart.
"Maybe I should have mentioned how far down the power was," he muttered. If anything, he sounded more tired than angry.
Nia glanced at him from the infirmary doorway. Concern was plain in her eyes. She had been silent since opening the vault, but now she broke her quiet vigil. "You okay?" she asked quietly, leaning against the wall.
He offered a weak smile as he placed a hand on the wall to steady himself. "I will be," he lied. "I'm just... more drained than I thought."
She nodded. "We both are." She gestured toward the medbed. "How is she?"
Adam moved to check the display. "Vitals stable, brainwaves barely above baseline. Whatever trauma she went through in cryo, her body handled it well. Could heal her fully given time and steady environment." His voice softened at the sight of the woman: early twenties, ashen-faced, her dark hair fanned across the pillow. Sleep made her look peaceful, unaware of the vacuum they were all surviving. Adam stepped in closer.
Nia followed. "So she's okay, then." Relief went through her tone.
Adam shrugged, uneasy. "Alive, yes. Consciousness might come in a few hours. It's... hard to say." He frowned. "We should try to get more life support active. The solar panels should be online any minute."
He moved away to adjust a terminal panel taped next to the grid network interface. The readouts flickered and stabilized. The faint hum of whirring circuits began to grow stronger.
"We have 3% vault capacity coming through," Adam reported. "We should light up something — maybe oxygen scrubbers or at least air recycling."
Nia nodded quickly. She flipped switches on the nearby environmental console. A hiss of air filled the room, gentle at first, then firm. A breeze stirred the curtains over the woman's eyes, as if welcoming her to wake up. The monitor beeped a soft tone.
Adam watched it pulse green, only slightly brighter now. "It's not much," he said, "but every bit helps."
His shoulder ached. He flexed his arm, trying to quell the pain radiating from the overloaded capacitors. The metal beneath his skin felt hot, burning from inside. He'd used graphene patches to reinforce the failing circuits in his arm last night — just enough to keep it together for now. But without repair, the strain would only worsen.
"Should I check on the panels?" Nia asked. Adam shook his head.
"No. We'll have to trust them. The remaining power lines out there are too bare, too easy to see."
Nia bit her lip and looked around the infirmary, dust swirling in the thin sunbeams. Everything was archaic — rust on the gurney wheels, cracked tiles, cobwebs on the ventilation grille. This place had been dead for ages.
"We need more salvage," Adam finally said aloud. He turned from the console. "If we keep running like this, those 3% won't last long. I'll have to find more parts."
Nia's eyes widened a bit. "Even more?" She folded her arms. "Are you going alone again?"
He shrugged. "You should stay here with her. I need at least a little help if she wakes up."
She frowned, glancing at the woman's slow heartbeat on the monitor. "She could be dangerous. We don't know anything about her. She might not even be human. If something happened in that vault..." Her voice trailed off, uneasy. "I'm worried about you being out there by yourself."
Adam nodded as if the ghost of doubt crossed his mind too. "Maybe, but I have to try. If the air starts getting low or the temperature drops, we'll have bigger problems than someone waking up."
Nia sighed in frustration but didn't protest further. "Fine. Just... be careful." She unfastened her belt holster and set her combat knife against the wall, as if preparing to replace it after a night's rest.
He offered a small grin. "Always."
Adam turned to the infirmary door. Before leaving, he patted Nia's shoulder. "Get some sleep yourself, if you can. Check on her if you wake. I'll come back soon."
She waved a hand. "Go. And hurry."
He adjusted his gauntlet's HUD to brightness high and left, the door sliding shut with a hiss. Light spilled over the dusty hallway. It was quiet now, too quiet, as if the vault itself was holding its breath.
He moved swiftly through the flickering lights of the main corridor, mentally mapping his route. Section Delta, the maintenance wing, was next. Beyond it lay engineering and storage, where he hoped to find something — anything — to add to their meager power grid.
The corridor's air was thick with rot and cold moisture. Rumors of the outside world's storms felt real here; condensation dripped from corroded ceiling panels in uneven intervals, each drop sounding like a clock tick on the cold floor. Adam held back a cough. Over decades, mold and old coolant had left a foul tang in the vents.
He stepped carefully, his gauntlet casting a narrow cone of blue light ahead. The emergency lights in this wing were failing, one by one. Sections of the wall panels hung loose, exposing rusted pipes. The map on his HUD showed he was the only one awake — no friendly comms, no squad left, just him.
Gauntlet: 8%. The numbers were dangerous, bordering on critical. Each step needed to count.
He reached the heart of Section Delta: a cavernous maintenance bay. The smell here was worst — a sharp electric ozone tang as if lightning had struck months ago. Machinery lay scattered and seized in piles of debris. Rusted shelves and collapsed cabinets blocked pathways.
"This place is a graveyard," Adam murmured under his breath.
He scanned the surroundings carefully. Smoke stains from old torches still flecked the air. Flickering overhead lights cast half-swallowed shadows. The HUD beeped softly — a container marked Graphene Plating (Sealed).
Hope flared. Graphene — light, strong, perfect for conductivity or insulation — exactly the kind of material he needed for reinforcing circuits and panels.
He knelt beside the metal storage bin, blowing decades of dust off the hatch. The wood beneath crumbled, but the metal lid groaned open. Inside lay sheets of thin, black film, shining even in the dim light. Adam carefully lifted one out. It was delicate and featherlight.
"Perfect," he whispered. The graphene slid into his satchel. "Could rig this into our wiring. And it's practically weightless."
He kept moving, deeper into maintenance hall. The HUD map indicated a decontamination chamber just ahead — rarely used when power's low, it was locked, but life detectors said it was empty. He approached, boots scraping on old cables.
As Adam stepped inside the decon room, his gauntlet buzzed unexpectedly. Residual power detected.
He spun, spotting a small wall console blinking weakly at the far end, its yellow and red lights pulsing in the dark. It was on, somehow staying alive.
A grin of relief curved on his face. Access to any working terminal was a treasure. He dashed over, wiping the grime away. With a microburst from his gauntlet, he sent a spark into the console's input panel. Flickering text bloomed on the screen.
"Schematic loaded. Reading data... Access: Granted."
A system schematic unfolded, showing a map of Vault 9X's core systems. His heartbeat quickened as he scrolled.
"Subreactor Diagnostics: Offline." The words stung. No auxiliary reactors running. Then: "Backup Relay Station: Inoperable." The vault had been designed with multiple subreactors to augment the main core, but everything was offline. Yet at the bottom, a list glowed.
His eyes darted. It was an inventory of parts — what was supposed to be here. Most were struck through, labeled Stolen or Destroyed. Except one:
Carbon-Wrapped Turbine Coil – Storage Bay Zeta(Status: Available)
He let out a quiet breath. "A turbine coil... We can use that." If he could get a working coil and pair it with some scrap in the substation, maybe he could spin up the backup relay.
He touched his gauntlet to the screen and the schematic. "Memory lock route saved. Bay Zeta. Z. Got it."
Leaving the console, Adam retraced his steps to the main hallway. Now he headed down toward the lower levels, where Storage Bay Zeta lay. The corridor sloped downward. The lights here had failed entirely; he switched the HUD beam to wide-cast. The air grew colder, stale with abandoned coolant.
After several turns, he arrived at a massive, nearly sealed metal door labeled STORAGE ZETA. The locking mechanism had seized, but he didn't hesitate. He wedged the crowbar he always carried into a gap in the frame and pulled.
Metal screamed as the door forced open a crack, then the hinges popped free. The door fell with a heavy clatter and settled amidst a cloud of dust. Adam shielded his face — the shock of cold air was both a relief and a warning.
Shelves in the chamber stood ten feet high, most empty; the rest held battered crates and unknown machinery caked in rust. Some shelves had collapsed under decay.
He moved cautiously among the debris, scanning with his HUD for large metal parts. His eyes nearly missed it: on a middle shelf, in a battered crate labeled TURBINE – ISOTRACE SERIES, one item rested alone.
Time seemed to freeze. Adam stepped forward, heart thumping. It was exactly what he hoped for: a single carbon-wrapped turbine coil, pristine amid the ruin. The coil was encased in a glass jar inside the crate, like a trophy waiting to be claimed.
He slipped a glove inside the latch and slowly lifted the lid. The jar was intact. Carefully he lifted the coil, checking for cracks. None. It was heavy and cold, its engineered carbon filaments coiled tightly.
"Still viable," he breathed, awe creeping into his tone. In the dim light, he admired the craftsmanship. It would be the heart of a new power source.
He stood, cradling the coil. A faint tink echoed from the far corner of the bay — a canister perhaps knocked loose. In the hush of this dead place, the sound shouted. Adam froze, listening.
Nothing moved. He held his breath.
Just the settling of old metal. Probably.
He felt sweat prickling at his brow from exertion — or was it fear?
He couldn't risk staying to investigate an empty sound. If someone was out there, he couldn't let them catch him off guard.
He backed toward the exit, coil held tight against his chest.
Only when he passed out of the door's slipstream of air did he exhale.
"Time to move," he murmured.
Back at the infirmary, Nia still sat by the sleeper's cot as the sun climbed higher. Adam returned, careful to check his surroundings, coil slung in the makeshift harness against his torso. His eyes were lighter now, more alert — hope fueling him despite the exhaustion.
Nia noticed first. "What did you find?" she asked, voice wary but interested.
Adam set the coil down gently on the stained desk. Next to it, he placed the folded graphene sheets. Both catches in the dim light of the overhead lamp.
"Graphene plating and a turbine coil," he said quietly. "Enough to rig a bypass or spin up a charge cycle."
Nia's eyes widened with relief and disbelief. "Graphene... That's what you were after?" She nodded. "Those panels must be connected now."
He dropped into a chair, flexing his aching arm. "I think so. We should have some steady output back there. At least enough to recharge the capacitors properly."
She raised her gaze to his face. Something about his posture, an edge in his eyes. "And that look on your face?" She reached out, concerned. "Haven't slept?"
Adam forced a smile. "Couldn't sleep. And I'm really low on juice." He flexed the fingers of his right hand. The faint glow under his skin pulsed dimly then flared out. "It's burning. The compensators are at their limit."
Nia frowned, stepping close. "You're running out of juice."
"I know." His answer was flat, tired.
"You ever gonna let me in on the plan?" she pressed, voice low.
Adam rubbed his face with his free hand. His mind felt like sandpaper — all scratch and ache. "There isn't a plan. Just a list of failing systems and the means to keep them from collapsing for another day."
Nia crossed her arms again. The weary accusation in her eyes was genuine now, worry deeply etched in her face. "You always do this," she whispered, almost to herself. "You keep fighting and patching things, but you never talk about why. You never let anyone help..."
Adam closed his eyes briefly at the familiar frustration. Instead of replying, he did something different: he turned, unfolded one of the graphene sheets, and began to work. He carefully stripped the charred conduit beneath the console's dead panel, peeling it back. The wiring was brittle, blackened from overload. He wouldn't have used graphene if the fiber mesh and copper cores were still fine — but they weren't.
"If these circuits go," he said as he soldered a fresh copper patch, "the entire relay station dies." Sparks flew as he tightened connections.
He wrapped a strip of graphene around the new wiring, sealing it with conductive paste. "This should hold a charge long enough until we get something more robust."
While he worked, Nia sat back down. The cold worry was plain on her face, but she remained silent, watching. The rhythmic hiss of the solder and the occasional click of the switch were the only sounds.
It felt like an age, but in truth only hours passed. Finally, Adam wiped his hands on a rag. "All right," he said. "Moment of truth."
He braced himself and powered the terminal. Blue light flickered and a spark shot through the new coil. The console beeped.
"Active," Adam said quietly, relief flooding his tone. "We're back up." The status bar crept from zero to three percent.
He slumped back. "Auxiliary relay: 3% vault capacity."
Nia gave a small laugh, half triumph and half relief. "It's only 3%, but... we got it."
He chuckled weakly. "It's better than none."
Adam's vision swam; he leaned against the wall. The victory might have been hollow if it weren't for the tiniest of triumphs. He closed his eyes for a moment, feeling the weight of exhaustion. "I didn't think we could get even that much back."
Nia moved closer, steadying him by the shoulders. He looked up at her, gratitude passing in his eyes. The air was still cold and dank. "We should see if that power lets some of the other systems blink back on — ventilation, maybe a scanner or something. We need every edge now."
She nodded. The vault had awakened at least a little. For the first time in too long, there was a glimmer of life in the stale air of these halls.
Adam pressed a button on the console to check the revived sensors. The speakers crackled, but were mostly silent. Then suddenly, in the quiet static, a faint voice emerged.
"...—uck... Repeat: Outpost Nine... anyone—"
Adam froze. The console fell silent, static only. His eyes flew to Nia's.
"What?" she hissed.
Adam's pulse thundered in his ears. "Listen." He turned the knob up on the comm terminal.
Voice, again, clearer this time: "This is Outpost Nine... request status and supplies. I repeat: is anyone... —uck."
Outpost Nine. None of their maps had ever marked such a place. Had the map been incomplete? Perhaps years after the bombs, someone made a new outpost.
"A person," Adam realized aloud. The voice crackled desperate, weak, but human. Someone out there, on the same channel, struggling to get through.
Nia gaped. "There are people out there?"
Adam reached over, thumb on the repeat button. The fragment looped. Words barely coalesced.
Outpost Nine.
He frowned at the name. It had been nothing to them so far. "Not on any old map," he agreed. "Unless someone revived or built it after... the Vault wars." The memory pressed: a program he had once known that scanned the Outer Lands after the bombs. No mention of Outpost Nine — until maybe now. He felt goosebumps.
He glanced toward the infirmary, at the still-sleeping woman. Could she have any idea about this? Was she connected? Probably not.
He looked back at the panel. The call had ended. Silence again.
"What do we do?" Nia asked quietly, broken from her stupor.
Adam stared at the blank screen. His mind raced. The vault's lights hummed softly as if holding their breath.
For a moment, he was afraid — was this a trap, a distress call from bandits? Or perhaps a friendly beacon?
He needed to talk this out, but out loud he felt Nia's gaze. She waited, expecting guidance. He realized that after all that morning's silence between them, he wasn't about to close up again. This was bigger now.
He took a steadying breath. The survival of Vault 9X was more urgent than ever. And now, its isolation had been broken.
"We have to decide," Adam said at last, voice measured. "That voice — it's human. Someone's calling out, and it sounds real." His eyes reflected a storm of hope and caution. "Outpost Nine — we don't even know who they are. Could be bandits, scavengers, or maybe another enclave. But we've got one shot at this."
Nia nodded, moving to stand at his side. The two of them stared at the darkened speaker, imagining the unknown figure somewhere out there.
"Vault 9X isn't isolated anymore," Adam murmured. "Someone knows we're here. And if they know... maybe we can learn something from them." He glanced back at the coiled solar rig diagrams on his datapad, at the vault schematics. The puzzle pieces were shifting in his mind.
He looked back to Nia, determination setting in. "We did everything right to survive this far. We've bought ourselves more time. Now, we need to figure out what to do with that time."
The radio's faint glow lingered. Outside, the desert wind whispered through the vents. The vault, once a silent crypt, had come alive with possibility and peril.
And at its center stood two people, ready for whatever came next.