Chapter 6: SCOUTING
The shelter kicked us out at seven AM. I stood on the street with my clothes—still torn from the fight, still bloodstained—and three dollars in my pocket.
Meeting was at six. I was an hour late.
I ran.
The church basement was empty when I arrived. Panic flared—they'd left without me. They'd decided it was bullshit after all. But then I heard voices outside.
All five stood by the back entrance. Everyone had backpacks or bags. Ruth's looked military surplus—probably was. Miles had a proper hiking pack. The others had whatever they could scavenge.
"You're late," Ruth said.
"Had to wait for the shelter to open."
"We thought you bailed."
"Never." I pulled out my three dollars. Combined with their forty—forty-three dollars total. "It'll be enough."
Danny had checked bus schedules. Two transfers. Final stop was still twenty miles from the Ironworks. We'd walk the rest.
The buses were nearly empty at this hour. We sat separately at first—habit of people who'd learned not to draw attention as a group. But on the second bus, Sofia sat next to me.
"Your mind's loud," she said. "Planning everything. Calculating distances. Worried about problems you can't predict yet."
"Can you turn it off? The reading?"
"No. It's like hearing. I can try not to listen but the noise is always there." She closed her eyes. "Most people's thoughts are garbage. Worry about bills. Anger at someone who cut them off. Lust. Hunger. Boring loops. But yours—you're building a city in your head. Street by street."
"I see problems better when I map them."
"That's a good skill for a leader."
"I'm not a leader. I'm an organizer."
Sofia smiled without opening her eyes. "You're about to have five people following you into the wilderness. That makes you a leader whether you like it or not."
The second bus dropped us at a town I didn't know the name of. Population maybe two thousand. One main street. We bought supplies with what money remained—bread, peanut butter, water bottles. Twelve dollars left over.
Then we walked.
Miles set the pace. Military training showed—he knew how to cover ground without exhausting people. We walked for two hours. Rested. Walked again. Ruth carried the heaviest pack without complaint. Tom kept phasing accidentally—stress response. Danny created small flames in his palms then extinguished them. Nervous energy.
Sofia walked with eyes closed half the time. "Fewer minds out here. It's better."
At hour five, we crested a hill.
Below us, the Ironworks sprawled across the valley.
Rusted steel buildings. Shattered windows. Overgrown paths. The river cut through the western edge—muddy, slow-moving. Hills rose on the other sides—natural barriers.
"That's it?" Ruth said. "That's your promised land?"
"That's the start," I said. "The foundation we build everything else on."
"It's a corpse."
"Corpses can be repurposed."
Miles was studying the layout with a professional eye. "Defensible. River provides water source. Multiple buildings give options. Approaches are limited. Could work."
"Could work and will work are different," Ruth said.
"True." Miles looked at me. "You have a construction plan?"
"Water first. Then shelter. Then food security. Then defense infrastructure."
"That's not a plan. That's a priority list."
"I'll have details once we're inside. Need to see what materials we have."
We descended the hill. Up close, the Ironworks looked worse. Rust and rot everywhere. But the bones were solid. The main mill building was massive—fifty feet high, maybe three hundred feet long. Other buildings surrounded it. All connected by overgrown paths.
I walked to the center of the main mill. The others followed.
This was it. The moment I'd been working toward since arriving in this world. Forty-three days since I woke in an alley. Forty-three days of pain, poverty, planning.
I placed my palm on the cold steel pillar at the building's heart.
The System flared to life.
[TERRITORY CLAIM AVAILABLE]
[LOCATION: FORMER IRONWORKS INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX]
[SIZE: 10.4 SQUARE KILOMETERS]
[CONDITION: ABANDONED, DETERIORATED]
[INITIATE CLAIM? Y/N]
Yes.
Light exploded from my hand—not visible to the others, but I felt it. A pulse of energy radiating outward. The System mapped the territory in real-time. Buildings. River. Hills. Roads. Resources. Everything.
[TERRITORY CLAIMED]
[SETTLEMENT ESTABLISHED]
[NATION TIER: 0 → 1]
[CONGRATULATIONS, HOST]
[YOUR NATION HAS BEEN BORN]
I pulled my hand away. The mark on my palm glowed faint gold for a second, then faded.
"What just happened?" Danny asked. "Your hand—it lit up."
Shit. They'd seen. I'd been careless.
"My mutation," I said. The lie came easily. "It's not flashy. Just—administrative. Organization. I can see systems. Make connections."
Ruth narrowed her eyes. "That's a convenient power."
"It's what I have."
She didn't look convinced but let it drop.
Miles was already exploring. "This building's structurally sound. Roof has holes but the support beams are intact. Foundation's solid. We can work with this."
Tom phased through a wall to check the next room. Came back. "Lots of debris. But also salvageable materials. This place has bones."
"We'll need to do a full survey," I said. "Map everything. Identify what's usable. Then prioritize repairs."
"Water first," Miles said. "Always water first."
"River's right there." Danny pointed west. "Can we drink from it?"
"Not without treatment. But we can build a filtration system."
Ruth snorted. "With what? We don't have tools. Don't have materials. Don't have shit except what we carried."
She was right. We had almost nothing. The System had resources—points I could spend—but I couldn't reveal that. Had to work within what appeared normal.
"We scavenge," I said. "This complex has decades of industrial equipment. We take it apart. Repurpose. Build what we need from what's here."
"That'll take months."
"Then we start today."
I looked at the five people who'd followed me here. Five mutants with powers they couldn't fully control or jobs they'd lost or families who'd rejected them. Five people with nowhere else to go and nothing to lose.
"I know this looks impossible," I said. "I know you're wondering what the hell you've gotten yourselves into. But we're standing in the middle of ten square kilometers that no one wants. That no one's watching. That's ours if we can hold it. In five years, this place will have walls. Real buildings. Power. Water. Food. Everything we need to survive independent of the world that rejected us. But first we have to survive the next five days."
"Great speech," Ruth said. "But I need to piss and there's no bathroom."
"River's that way."
"Fantastic."
She walked off. The others laughed. Tension broke.
Miles clapped me on the shoulder. "That wasn't a terrible first speech. Couple more and you might convince us."
"I'll work on it."
We spent the rest of the day mapping the main building. Danny found an old office with a mostly intact roof—we claimed it as base camp. Sofia discovered a storage room with boxes of ancient paperwork—we'd use it for kindling. Tom phased through locked doors—found tools, rusty but functional.
Ruth proved her worth immediately. A steel beam had collapsed across a doorway. Miles and I together couldn't budge it. Ruth grabbed one end and lifted—alone. The beam rose. We stared.
"Gamma-class," she said. "Twenty tons on a good day. This is maybe five."
She moved the beam like it weighed nothing.
By sunset, we'd established a perimeter of sorts. The main building was ours. We'd mapped three others. Water source identified. Pile of scavenged materials growing.
Danny built our first fire—carefully, controlled. We sat around it as darkness fell. Six people in a ruined building in the middle of nowhere.
"So what do we call this place?" Tom asked.
I'd been thinking about that. A name mattered. Named things were real.
"New Haven," I said. "Because that's what it is. A haven. A new start."
Sofia smiled. "I like it. New Haven. The place where the lost find home."
Ruth threw a rock into the darkness. "New Haven. Where five mutants and one crazy human try not to die." She looked at me. "One month, Cole. You've got one month."
"I'll make it count."
That night, we slept on the concrete floor of the office. No beds. No blankets—we'd use those tomorrow. Just exhausted bodies on hard ground.
But we were here. We'd done it.
The System pulsed acknowledgment.
[NATION STATUS]
Territory: 10.4 sq km (New Haven)
Population: 6
Buildings: 1 claimed, 12 unclaimed
Resources: Scavenged materials (minimal)
[NEW QUEST: ESTABLISH BASIC INFRASTRUCTURE]
[BUILD WATER PURIFICATION SYSTEM: 0/1]
[REPAIR MAIN BUILDING ROOF: 0/1]
[ESTABLISH FOOD SUPPLY: 0/1]
[REWARD: 200 EXP, 300 NP, UNLOCK CONSTRUCTION FUNCTIONS]
I lay in darkness and listened to five people breathing. Ruth snored. Miles shifted constantly—old soldier, light sleeper. Danny made small whimpering sounds—nightmares probably. Sofia breathed in tiny gasps—even asleep, the mental noise affected her. Tom was silent.
This was my nation. Six people. Ten kilometers. No resources.
Build from here. One day at a time. One structure at a time. Prove Ruth wrong. Prove everyone wrong.
Outside, the river whispered. Wind moved through broken windows. Somewhere in the distance, an animal called.
New Haven. Born today. Still breathing.
Tomorrow we'd start making it more than bones.
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