Chapter 70: The Voice in the Static
The antenna on the comm set was a thin coil of wire and foil, and Rosa turned it a few degrees east out of habit. The static shifted, a little softer, and she left it there. Above her, the fifth-floor hallway was silent. The whole building was silent, the way a dormitory only is when everyone is listening for the same thing.
Sandy sat cross-legged on the floor across from her, her back against a stack of rubber tubs labeled MED-2 and SPRING SEEDS. She had a mug of cold tea balanced on her knee and her glasses pushed up into her hair. She hadn't said anything in twenty minutes.
Rosa pulled the headset down over one ear, leaving the other bare. The wire was frayed at the joint and she'd taped it twice. She could feel the faint crackle of the band, open, waiting.
"It's been quiet too long," she said.
Sandy looked up. She didn't answer right away, just tilted her head like she was testing the air.
"They're probably just moving slow on the rail bed. The ballast is loose."
Rosa nodded. She'd walked that rail yard twice. The stone made your ankles roll if you didn't pick your feet up. Roy's boots were good, though. She'd checked the soles herself that morning.
The radio hummed.
She reached up and adjusted the volume dial, a hair, and the hum flattened out. Two hours, eleven minutes since they'd left the lobby. Lee had checked in at the rail yard edge, forty minutes in, his voice terse and clipped. Since then, nothing but the carrier wave, alive and open and empty.
The coffee on the floor next to her had gone skin-cold. She picked it up anyway and drank a sip, mostly to have something to do with her hands.
"I keep thinking about the map," she said. "The flare zone. It was bad before, but the wind this spring stripped a lot of the cover."
Sandy set the mug down and shifted onto her knees, reaching for a small screwdriver from a tray of parts. She didn't have a task, just something to hold.
"They know the zone, Rosa. Lee's been talking about that shop for weeks. He had a full route planned with alternates."
"I know."
"He's too careful to get surprised."
Rosa opened her mouth to answer, but the radio clicked.
A short burst of noise, then Lee's voice, low and clear.
"We're at the junction. Moving to the west approach now."
Sandy sat back on her heels, hands still. Rosa spoke immediately.
"Copy, Lee. Holding position here."
A pause. The carrier wave pulsed.
Lee's voice again, quieter. "Anything on the perimeter?"
Sandy shook her head. Rosa keyed the mic.
"Nothing moving within the DZ. It's quiet."
Then the static shifted again, and Roy's voice came through, low and steady, the way he sounded when he was in the middle of a hard job and had himself under control.
"Good. We'll check in from the shop."
Rosa's chest loosened. She didn't realize she'd been holding her breath until she let it out, a long, slow exhale that made her shoulders drop. He was fine. They were fine.
Sandy smiled at her across the radio, a small, knowing thing.
"He's good at this, Rosa. Let him work."
Rosa nodded, and pressed the headset closer to her ear, listening as the carrier wave hummed into the next silence.
The carrier wave hummed, empty and patient. Rosa counted her breaths, steady as a metronome, watching the clock on the wall tick past the two-hour mark and into the third. The minute hand moved, and she moved with it, shifting her weight from one hip to the other on the creaking chair.
"You want more tea?" Sandy asked, standing and collecting both mugs. "The pot's still warm."
"No. I'm good."
Sandy paused at the doorway, looked back at her. The older woman's face was careful, kind, the way she looked at any of them when they were wound too tight.
"Lee said they'd check in from the shop. It's what, another twenty minutes on foot?"
"Fifteen if they keep a good pace."
"Fifteen, then." Sandy's voice was deliberately light. "Plenty of time for me to find something to do."
She left, and the room settled back into its hush. Rosa pulled the headset off entirely and set it on the desk, rubbing her ear where the band had pressed. The static still muttered through the speakers, thin and white. She turned the volume down a quarter turn, then back up again. Leaving it alone was harder than leaving it up.
The floorboard outside the door creaked. Footsteps, light, then Sandy's voice, muffled through the wood. "It's me."
Rosa picked the headset back up, and the familiar weight settled against her skull. She adjusted the band, and then she waited.
The radio clicked twice. Two short bursts, Lee's signal for moving again. Rosa keyed the mic, once, twice, letting him know she was there. The pattern was simple, something they'd worked out months ago, back when they'd first started long-range runs. A click meant I'm here. Two meant I'm clear. Three meant trouble.
The click-click came back, and then the carrier wave resumed.
Sandy came back through the door with a fresh mug, steam curling from the surface. She set it beside Rosa's knee and settled back onto the floor, cross-legged, pulling her notebook from her apron pocket.
"Anything?"
"Just the move signal."
"He's getting close to the shop, then."
Rosa nodded, but the nod didn't reach her chest. The quiet was still wrong. The kind of quiet that settled too deep, pressed too hard.
She tilted the antenna another degree, for no reason she could name. The static dropped half a level.
Minutes passed. Five. Seven. The clock ticked past two hours and forty minutes since they'd left the lobby. Lee's last check-in had been at the junction, which meant they should have reached the shop by now. Should have been inside, checking the solar array, pulling the capacitors.
Sandy turned a page in her notebook, and Rosa strained to hear through the hum, her whole body leaning toward the speaker.
Then a sound cut through, sharp and sudden. A burst of static that wasn't pattern or click, that had no shape at all. Rosa's hand came down on the squelch knob before she thought, and the noise flattened out.
The speaker hissed. Empty.
"Rosa." Sandy's voice was quiet. "That was interference. Could've been anything."
"Could've been."
Rosa pulled the headset on with both ears, the muffling weight sealing out the rest of the world. She leaned forward, elbows on knees, staring at the speaker grille as if she could will a voice through it.
The hiss stayed.
Then, a click. Three times. Slow and deliberate.
Lee's voice, tight and controlled, only slightly rough at the edges. "Rosa. We're at the shop. It's been compromised. Something's been in here recently."
Rosa's throat closed. She worked her mouth open, keyed the mic.
"Compromised how?"
A pause. A click-click, the moving signal. The line went quiet again, and the cold that settled in her chest was not the cold of the hallway, or the cooling coffee on the floor. It was the cold of a plan coming undone, the moment before the ground dropped out from under her feet.
The cold in her chest had a name now. It was the name of a plan coming apart, and she could feel the seams popping one by one.
She stood. The chair scraped back, loud in the hush.
"I'm gonna get Jayden, Ally, and Amie prepared to scout. We send them to the rail yard, then to higher ground from the flare zone. We need eyes."
Sandy's pencil stopped mid-page. She looked up, and for a second Rosa saw the protest forming behind her glasses, the careful, mothering shape of it. But Sandy knew better than to argue with that tone. She just nodded and folded her notebook shut.
"I'll hold the comm. You go."
Rosa was already at the door. She paused with one hand on the frame, looking back.
"If anyone checks in, don't tell them I'm scrambling. Not yet."
Sandy's mouth tightened, but she nodded again. "Go."
The stairs were cold under her boots. She took them two at a time, skipping the creaking fourth step out of habit, her braid swinging against her back. The common room on the third floor was dim, the daylight through the boarded windows thin and grey. Jayden was at the card table, cleaning a handgun with methodical care. Ally had her feet up on the couch, a book open on her knee. Amie was standing by the window, arms crossed, watching the treeline.
Rosa stopped in the doorway, breathing even.
"We've got a problem. Lee and the others found the shop compromised. Fresh tracks, recent activity. I need scouts on the rail yard and high ground east of the flare zone."
Jayden set the gun down. "What kind of activity?"
"Unknown. That's the problem."
Ally closed the book. "You want us to go now?"
"Yes. Now." Rosa's hands were already moving, pulling the tactical vest from the hook by the door. She shrugged it on over her shoulders, checking the mag pouches out of reflex. "I'll be right behind you in the comm room. You'll check in every ten minutes on the secondary channel."
Amie turned from the window. "What's the route?"
"Rail yard, west edge. Keep to the treeline, don't cross open ground. Then the ridge south of the flare zone, the one with the water tower. From up there you can see the whole approach to the shop."
Jayden stood, holstering the pistol. "And if we see something?"
Rosa met her eyes. "You come back and tell me. You don't engage, you don't get close. Eyes only. That's an order."
The three of them moved. Ally grabbed her pack from the corner, Amie pulled on a reinforced jacket, Jayden laced her boots with quick, efficient pulls. Rosa watched them for a moment, the machinery of the group clicking into place, and then she turned and headed back toward the stairs.
Sandy was in the hall outside the comm room, holding the headset.
"Nothing yet. Just the carrier."
Rosa took it, settling it over her ears. The familiar weight pressed against her skull. She keyed the mic, tested the channel.
"Scout team, this is base. Sound off."
Three clicks came back in quick succession. One each. Ally, Amie, Jayden. The sound of them moving, of doors opening, of boots on gravel.
Rosa stood in the doorway of the comm room, one hand on the frame, and listened to the static breathe. She could feel her own pulse in her throat, steady and loud. She wanted to be out there. Every muscle in her body wanted to be moving over that rail bed, rifle up, eyes scanning. She knew the terrain. She knew the risks. She knew that with her arm still healing, she'd be a liability, a body they'd have to drag back if it went wrong.
She knew it. She still hated it.
The radio clicked. One, two, three. Jayden's voice, low and clipped.
"Base, we're heading to the yard edge. Moving by South-east." They spoke in wind speak, saying where they were coming from rather than heading to.
Rosa keyed the mic. "Copy. Keep your heads down."
She sat down in the chair, the one she'd been in for three & 1/2 hours, and pulled the headset tight against both ears. The static washed over her, white and patient, and she waited for the world to tell her what it was doing.
The first ten-minute mark came and went with a single click from Jayden. Just the signal, no voice. Rosa keyed back once and let the static swallow her again.
Sandy leaned over the main channel headset, her back bent, one finger pressed to the ear cup. She pulled it away and looked at Rosa.
"Lee's doing a sweep of the back room. He says the solar array is intact but the wiring's been cut. Fresh cut."
"Clean cut?"
"Clean. Tool marks. Someone came in prepared to strip it."
Rosa's jaw tightened. The coffee had gone cold again. She didn't look at it.
Jayden's voice came through the second headset, low and breathy. "Base, we're past the yard edge. Moving to the treeline. Ten minutes to the ridge."
"Copy. Eyes open."
The line clicked off. Rosa checked her watch. 3:06.
Sandy turned back to her channel, adjusting the volume with a practiced hand. "Lee, confirm the capacitor bank status. Is it salvageable?"
A pause. Then Lee's voice, tinny through the speaker. "It's here. Intact. But the disconnect was deliberate. Someone knew what they were looking for."
Rosa felt her pulse in the base of her throat. She pulled the second headset over her ears, sealing out the hall, and leaned into the desk. The two channels hummed against each other, white noise overlapping white noise.
The minutes crawled.
Second check-in. Ally's voice instead of Jayden's, her wind-speak careful and clipped. "Base, we're on the ridge. Water tower in sight. Getting the field glasses up now."
"Copy, Ally. What do you see?"
A long pause. Static. Rosa counted her heartbeats.
"Shop's in view. I've got the back entrance. There's a light moving inside."
"Internal light?"
"Looks like a headlamp. Single beam. It's crossing the windows. Could be Lee."
Sandy shook her head, one hand over the main channel. "No, Lee's in the back by the solar bank. He said the front room was dark."
Rosa's hand tightened on the mic. The air in the room felt thicker than it had a minute ago.
"Ally, keep watching. Don't move off the ridge. I say again, don't move off the ridge."
"Copy. Not moving."
Sandy was watching her, glasses catching the dim light. "Rosa, I can ask Lee to hold position—"
"No. Don't pull them until we know." Rosa's voice came out steadier than she felt. "If that light's not Lee and it's not Jason, we need eyes before we'll call the retreat."
Sandy nodded, slow, and turned back to the main channel. She keyed the mic, walking a fine line. "Lee, can you confirm your team's position and the number of lights in the building?"
The static lay flat for a long moment. Then Roy's voice, low and measured, cut through.
"Sandy, it's me. Lee's in the back, I'm at the front window with Jason. There's no one else in the building."
Rosa's shoulders dropped half an inch. The air pressed against her ears.
"Copy, Roy. Stay by that window." Rosa heard herself keying the second channel, her thumb moving before her mind caught up. "Ally, confirm. The light in the window. Is it stationary or moving?"
A breath. Then Ally's voice, sharper now. "It's moving. But it's not in the building anymore. It just went out the front door."
The cold hit her chest. Sandy's face went still.
"Ally, track it. Don't engage." Rosa was already crossing to the door, the headset cord tugging at the desk, her hand on the frame. "What does it look like? Is it one person?"
The pause stretched long and thin.
Base, it's two. Two people. One's carrying something long wrapped in cloth. The other is heading toward the treeline. They're moving fast.
Rosa stood in the doorway, the main channel still humming behind her, the second channel alive in her ears. Somewhere out there a light had left the shop, a pair of feet she didn't know were crossing ground she'd promised were safe.
"Copy," she said, and her voice was all edges now. "Hold the ridge. I'm scrambling two more to the south approach."
Sandy pulled the headset off one ear, looking up at her with wide eyes. "Rosa, your arm—"
"Don't argue with me about my arm." Rosa was already moving down the stairs. "You hold both channels. You tell the guys nothing except that I'm en route. When they sort the shop, you bring them home."
Behind her, the radio clicks continued, steady as a heartbeat, the layout of the world shifting on the map she carried in her head.
The stairs swallowed her bootsteps. She hit the second-floor landing and cut left, toward the armory they'd built out of the old study room. The door swung open on oiled hinges. She didn't stop to think.
The comm relay sat in its foam case, a compact unit the size of a thick paperback. She clipped it to the inside of her vest, ran the earpiece wire up under her collar, and seated the bud in her ear. A twist of the dial and both channels came alive, Jayden's breathing on one side, the soft shuffle of movement on the other. Roy's voice, low, asking Lee something about the disconnect. She let the sound sit against her skin like a second pulse.
The handguns came next. Two Glocks, the ones they'd stripped and rebuilt in the basement workshop, both with fresh springs and clean bores. She checked the chambers out of habit, seated them in the holsters at her hips, and slid two spare mags into the vest pockets. The throwing knives were in a roll on the shelf, seven of them, balanced and sharp. She strapped the sheath to her thigh, flat against the muscle.
The black clothes were already on. She'd been wearing them under her jacket for hours, ready for the moment the world moved wrong. The vest went over her torso, snug, the plates a familiar weight. She shrugged into the leather jacket last, the one with the patched elbow and the creased collar. It smelled like rain and woodsmoke and every supply run she'd ever survived.
She was out the side door before the vest strap was fully cinched.
The back route ran behind the dormitory, through the maintenance yard, past the compost bins and the collapsed greenhouse frame. She took it at a jog, boots finding the packed earth path without a sound. The fence gap was where they'd left it, concealed behind a stand of overgrown lilac.
She slipped through the gap and pulled the lilac branches back into place behind her, a green curtain closing on the world she knew. The land beyond the fence was scrub and ruin, a field gone to seed, dotted with the dark shapes of dead cars and the hulks of abandoned equipment. She kept to the shallow drainage ditch that ran beside the old access road, letting it hide her profile. The flare zone sprawled ahead, a quarter mile of open ground before the first collapsed buildings rose from the weed-choked pavement.
The comm in her ear clicked. Jayden, low: "Base, two figures are on the south ridge, moving fast with the wrapped load. They're heading for the old rail spur."
Rosa keyed the mic twice. She didn't speak. The clicks carried: I'm here. I'm moving.
She picked up her pace, a steady jog that ate ground without breaking her wind. The healing arm throbbed in protest, a dull ache that climbed from the elbow to the shoulder. She ignored it. The vest's plates pressed warm against her ribs, and the leather jacket whispered against the holsters at her hips.
The first collapsed building rose before her, a hardware store that had burned before the world ended, its steel frame bent into a skeletal arch. She moved through its shadow, boots quiet on the rubble, and came out the other side into the flare zone proper. The sign for the Fourteenth Street shop was still legible across the street, its painted letters faded but honest. The shop itself waited ahead, two stories of brick and dark windows, the back wall facing her.
She slowed, dropping to a crouch behind a rusted dumpster. The earpiece carried the static of both channels. Lee's voice, tinny through the comm, said something about the disconnect having been premeditated. Jason answered, too low to make out. Roy was quiet.
Rosa scanned the treeline south of the shop, the direction the figures had gone. A gap in the scrub, a bent sapling, a fresh smear of boot prints in the mud between the tree roots. She found the tracks and followed them with her eyes to the rail spur, the rusted line that curved away toward the old industrial yard.
The two figures would be crossing that open ground now, carrying the wrapped load. She didn't know what was in it. She didn't need to. It had come out of the same room Lee said had been stripped with clean tool marks, and it was leaving the zone in the hands of people who had cut the wiring on purpose.
Rosa pressed the mic with her thumb, three clicks, a pause long enough to feel her own pulse, then three more. The pattern cut through the static like a key turning. She waited one breath, then keyed again, a single long tone held for three seconds.
Status.
Silence stretched. The earpiece hummed against her skull. She stayed low behind the dumpster, eyes on the treeline, the smear of boot prints still fresh in the mud.
Jayden's voice came through, tight and breathy.
"Base, we're on the ridge. Still have eyes on the two figures. They're holding pace along the rail spur, northbound. One's carrying the wrapped load, the other's got a rifle slung. They're not looking back."
Rosa's mind worked the map. The rail spur curved northeast, hugging the old industrial yard. Beyond that, open scrub for half a mile before the treeline thickened. If they made the yard, tracking got ugly. Sheet metal, cover, a dozen ways to vanish.
"Can you keep eyes on them from your position?" she asked.
"Partly. We'll lose them at the yard edge. The treeline cuts our sight line."
Rosa keyed the mic twice. Acknowledged.
She straightened slowly, boots silent on the rubble, and moved along the dumpster's shadow toward the corner of the shop. The second channel carried Lee's voice, low and methodical, talking about the disconnect. Jason answered something about the capacitor mounts. Roy was quiet.
"You want us to move off the ridge and track on foot?" Jayden asked.
The question hung in the static. Rosa pictured the terrain, the rail spur's dead straight line, the yard ahead of it. The figures were moving fast but not running. They were carrying something heavy and wrapped. They had a destination in mind.
"No. Hold the ridge. I'll take the yard edge east and try to cut their sight line from the treeline."
Silence. Then Jayden, careful: "Your arm's not healed, Rosa."
"It doesn't need to be for this."
She moved before the argument could take shape. Along the shop's west wall, past a collapsed awning, through a gap in the fence that had rusted open years ago. The rail spur lay ahead, two rusted lines running through waist-high weeds. She kept to the weeds' edge, boots finding quiet ground, the earpiece carrying the soft sounds of three people breathing on separate channels.
The figures came into view, maybe two hundred yards out. Two shapes, one with the wrapped bundle balanced across a shoulder, the other scouting ahead, rifle held low. They moved with purpose, not panic. They knew the ground.
Rosa dropped to a knee behind a dead bush and watched them reach the yard's edge. The treeline swallowed them a second later.
"Base, we've lost visuals," Ally said. "They're in the yard."
Rosa keyed the mic once. Understood.
She stayed where she was, breathing slow, counting the seconds it would take the figures to cross the yard's debris field. The wrapped bundle, whatever it was, had come out of the same room Lee said had been stripped clean. Whoever cut that wiring wanted what was in that bundle.
The answer was no. They didn't get to take it.
She stood, moved east along the treeline, keeping the rail spur between her and the yard. The healing arm throbbed with each stride. She let it.
The rail spur curved wide around the yard's east edge, and Rosa used it, staying low in the weeds until the treeline thinned. She crossed the open gap at a crouch, boots silent on the packed dirt, and came up behind a collapsed loading dock. The concrete slab tilted at an angle, propped on a rusted support beam, leaving a wedge of shadow just wide enough to kneel in.
The exit point was ahead, twenty yards. The only gap in the yard's chain-link fence that wasn't blocked by debris or rusted tight. A single opening, wide enough for one person at a time. The figures would have to funnel through it single file.
She settled into the wedge, drew the Glock, and rested her wrists on the concrete lip. The sights lined up on the gap. Her breathing evened out. The healing arm throbbed, but the ache had settled into something dull and manageable. She let the pistol sit steady, both hands wrapped around the grip.
The earpiece hummed. Jayden's voice, barely a whisper: "Base, we've lost them completely. They're inside the yard somewhere."
Rosa keyed the mic once. She didn't dare speak. Sound carried in the yard's open air, and the fence gap was close enough that a voice would echo off the metal.
She waited.
The yard was a graveyard of rusted machinery and collapsed sheds. Sunlight fell through a broken roof section, picking out a clutch of weeds and a tire that had split and gone grey. Somewhere inside, metal shifted, a faint creak that could have been wind or a footstep. Rosa held the line of her aim, breathing through her nose, letting the weight of the pistol settle into her bones.
Two minutes passed. Maybe three. The light in the yard shifted, a haze of dust caught in a crossbeam.
Then a sound, sharp and close. A boot scraped on concrete.
The first figure came through the gap, hunched under the wrapped bundle. A canvas tarp, folded and tied, long enough to be a rifle case or a section of pipe. The man carried it across both shoulders, head down, moving with the steady rhythm of someone who had carried heavy loads across worse ground.
Rosa's finger rested on the trigger guard. She didn't move.
The second figure followed a second later, rifle slung low across his chest, eyes scanning the open ground ahead. His head turned, once, sweeping left to right, and his gaze passed over the loading dock without stopping. He stepped through the gap and turned to the east, toward the treeline beyond.
They were clear of the yard now. Open ground ahead of them, a dirt track that ran toward the old maintenance sheds. The bundle swayed on the first man's shoulders, and the rifleman walked a few paces ahead, still scanning.
Rosa made her choice in the space between heartbeats. She rose from the wedge, pistol extended, both arms out, and stepped clear of the loading dock.
"Stop. Both of you. Drop the rifle and put the bundle down slow."
The rifleman froze mid-step. His head came up. The man with the bundle stopped, planted his feet, but didn't lower the load.
"Who's there?" The rifleman's voice was rough, edged with surprise.
Rosa's sights held on his chest. "The person asking you to make a smart decision. Bundle on the ground. Rifle too. Then you walk east and don't look back."
The rifleman's hand tightened on the grip. The man with the bundle shifted his weight, the canvas creaking.
"Hey," the bundle carrier said, voice younger than she expected. "We're not looking for trouble. We found it. It was just sitting there."
Rosa didn't move her aim. "It wasn't just sitting there. It was wired in. Somebody planned to take it. That looks like your work."
The rifleman's jaw worked. The barrel of his rifle hadn't come up, but his finger had found the trigger guard.
"You're hurt," he said. "That arm you're holding out, it's not steady. You don't want to do this."
Rosa felt the ache in her shoulder, the slight tremor the healing bone had left behind. She adjusted her grip, planted her feet wider, and steadied the pistol against the hollow of his collarbone.
"It's steady enough. Last chance."
The bundle shifted again. The canvas slipped an inch, and Rosa caught a flash of grey-green metal and the edge of a glass lens, curved and heavy.
The roar of a rifle shot split the silence from behind her, and the rifleman's chest bloomed red before the sound finished echoing off the yard walls.
The rifleman folded at the knees and pitched sideways into the weeds. The bundle carrier stared at his partner, at the red spreading through the cloth of his jacket, at the sudden absence of the man who had been walking point. His hands stayed on the canvas. His face went pale in the grey light.
Rosa's pistol didn't drop. She held it steady on his sternum.
"Please. I'm not particularly interested in killing someone significantly younger than me. And I don't know who precisely shot your friend." The lie sat easy in her mouth. Both channels lived in her ear, and she could feel Jayden's breathing on the other end, high on the ridge with a rifle she hadn't ordered fired. "All I want you to do is set the thing down, and walk away with your life."
The boy's eyes flicked from her face to the dead man and back. His knuckles were white where they gripped the bundle. A breath came out of him, long and ragged.
"You're going to let me go."
"Yes."
"You don't want to know who we are."
"No."
He lowered the bundle to the ground, slow as a man handling a bomb. The canvas settled in the dirt with a soft, heavy thud. He straightened, hands rising to shoulder height, and the rifle he'd carried was still on the ground where his partner had dropped it, ten feet of open ground between him and any weapon.
"Walk east," Rosa said. "Don't stop. Don't look back."
He looked at the dead man once, and something in his face trembled.
"Take him with you, if you want. And for the record, I’m sorry. He shouldn’t have had to die so young." Rosa’s voice was flat, but solemn. She’d be having words once everyone was safe.
The boy's throat worked. He looked at the body again, then at Rosa, and something in his face settled, hard and young and tired. He hooked his hands under the dead man's arms and hauled, dragging the rifleman toward the east track. The body's heels left two furrows in the dirt. He didn't look back.
Rosa waited until the treeline swallowed him. Then she holstered the Glock, crouched, and pulled the canvas off the bundle.
A capacitor bank. Three cells wired in series, the casings clean and unmarked, the terminals still wrapped in protective caps. The lens was clamped to the frame with a cradle Lee had described in his notebook. Whoever cut that wiring knew exactly what they were pulling, and they'd pulled it out whole.
She keyed the mic. "Jayden."
A breath. Then Jayden's voice, quiet but unsteady. "Base."
"We'll talk about the shot later. Right now I need you and the others to stay on the ridge until I'm back at the shop."
"Copy."
Rosa lifted the capacitor bank, testing the weight. Twenty pounds, maybe twenty-five. She settled it across her shoulder, balanced against the healed side, and started back along the rail spur.
She kept to the weeds' edge, moving faster than she'd come, the ache in her arm sharp but bearable. The shop's back wall rose ahead, dark windows, the loading door left ajar. She slipped through the gap and set the bank down on a workbench inside the door.
The main room was lit by two headlamps, one on the floor, one wedged into a shelf bracket. Lee was on his knees by the solar bank, the disconnect panel open, a multimeter in one hand. Jason stood by the window, one arm crossed, his head half-turned toward the sound of her boots.
Roy was next to Jason,
"Rosa." Jason took a step forward, then stopped, reading her face. "You're bleeding."
She looked down. A scrape along her forearm, shallow, the blood already drying dark against her sleeve. She'd caught it on the loading dock's concrete edge and hadn't felt it.
"It's nothing. The capacitor bank is on the bench. The one they took."
Lee looked up, eyes wide behind his glasses. "You got it back?"
"I got it back. The two who took it, they're not coming back for it. One of them is dead."
The silence that followed had weight. Jason's hand came up, automatically, and settled on Roy's back. Roy didn't move, just looked at her with that steady, measuring gaze he had when he was checking her for damage.
"What was in the wrapped bundle?" Rosa asked. "The capacitors. They pulled the lens too?"
Lee crossed to the workbench, running a hand over the bank's casing. "Everything. The whole assembly." He looked up at her, and the relief in his face was naked. "We thought we'd lost it. The clean cut meant someone knew the wiring diagram, knew how to pull it fast."
"They knew what it was worth," Rosa said. "That's what concerns me. Someone out there is working with the same hardware we are."
Roy's voice came through the earpiece, low and steady, the way he sounded when he was in the middle of a hard job and had himself under control.
"Did you get it back in one piece?"
She keyed the mic with her thumb, a single click. Then, because he deserved the words, she spoke.
"Clean as it left. Lee's already checking the terminals."