Chapter 19: FORTIFICATION
The meeting started at dawn.
Thirty-four people crammed into the dining hall—everyone who could walk. I stood at the front with a map and no good options.
"They know we're here," I said. Direct. No sugar-coating. "Approximately. Within a few miles. They'll find us exactly soon. When they do, they'll come with guns and fire. We have days. Maybe a week. We need to be ready."
Silence. Then someone—I still didn't know all the names—spoke up. "How many?"
"Twenty. Armed. Organized. They've killed twelve mutants already."
"And we're supposed to fight them?" The voice cracked. Young. Scared.
"We're supposed to survive them. Fighting is one option. Evacuating is another. Staying hidden and hoping they pass is a third. We vote."
Ruth stepped forward. "I vote we fight. This is our home. We don't give it up."
"I vote we run," someone else said. "Live to build somewhere else."
Debate erupted. Voices overlapping. Fear and anger mixing.
I let it go for five minutes. Then: "Quiet."
They stopped.
"We do both. We prepare to fight if they find us. We prepare to evacuate if we can't hold. Everyone gets a role. Fighters train. Non-combatants learn escape routes. Children are protected first, always. No one dies because we weren't ready."
"What if we can't stop them?" Emma asked. The eight-year-old with useless wings. She'd been silent for weeks after arriving traumatized. Now she spoke up in a war council.
"Then we run," I said honestly. "And rebuild somewhere else. But we try to hold first."
She nodded. Satisfied with honesty.
"Who's willing to fight?" Ruth asked.
Twenty hands went up. Some steady. Some shaking. All committed.
"Then we train," Ruth said. "Hard. Starting now."
Ruth ran the combat training like a drill sergeant having a bad day.
"You hold the pipe like this—firm grip, not strangling it. Hit with the weighted end. Aim for knees or head. Body shots waste energy."
Twenty people stood in the yard holding improvised weapons. Pipes. Sharpened metal. Kitchen knives repurposed. We looked like a medieval army designed by someone who'd never seen a real weapon.
James—rock skin, incredibly strong—stood in the center as a practice target. "Hit me. Hard as you can."
A young man swung. The pipe bounced off James's chest. James didn't flinch.
"Harder. If you're fighting someone trying to kill you, you don't hold back."
The next swing left a dent in the pipe. James's skin showed no mark.
"Better."
My turn. I stepped up with my metal pipe. Swung at James's midsection. Connected with a dull clang that rattled my arms.
"Terrible form," Ruth said. "You're telegraphing. They'll see it coming a mile away."
"I'm not a fighter."
"You're learning to be one. Again."
I swung again. Better. Still terrible.
"Again."
By the fourth swing, my arms burned. By the tenth, my hands had blisters forming. Ruth didn't care.
"You think they'll stop because you're tired? Again."
I kept swinging.
Across the yard, Danny practiced with fire control. Small flames. Controlled projection. He could maintain a six-foot barrier for thirty seconds before exhausting himself.
"Longer," Ruth commanded. "If you're holding a line, thirty seconds doesn't cut it."
Danny gritted his teeth. The flames held. Forty seconds. Fifty. He collapsed at sixty, gasping.
"Rest. Then again."
No mercy. No easy path. Just repetition until muscle memory replaced thought.
Day three of preparation. Tom returned from a reconnaissance mission looking grim.
"They're planning," he said. "Saw them at the barn. Maps spread out. Our general area circled. They're sending scouts tomorrow."
"How many scouts?"
"Three. Daytime. Looking for structures, population, defenses."
Ruth immediately started calculating. "We could ambush them. Take them out quietly. FOH wouldn't know what happened."
"No," I said.
"They're coming to find us so they can kill us."
"And if we murder their scouts, we're murderers. We defend. We don't hunt."
"That's stupid idealism."
"That's the line between us and them."
She didn't agree. But she didn't argue further.
Instead, we prepared for scouts. Covered obvious signs of habitation. Moved people inside during daylight. Made New Haven look abandoned from a distance.
The scouts came on day four. Tom watched them phase through a wall. Three men with binoculars, walking the perimeter two miles out. They saw the buildings—old, rusted, apparently empty. Took notes. Left.
"They'll be back," Tom said. "With everyone."
"When?"
"Days. They need to plan, gather weapons, coordinate. I'd guess three to five days."
So we kept preparing.
Victor completed the warning system on day five.
Motion sensors salvaged from God-knows-where. Tripwires connected to flares. Bells rigged to alert at specific perimeter points. Not sophisticated. But layered.
"Eastern approach has three sensors," Victor explained, pointing at a crude map. "South has two. West and north are natural barriers—river and cliff. Harder to approach quietly."
"What's the detection range?"
"Hundred feet on the sensors. Tripwires are at fifty feet intervals. Anyone approaching at night will trigger something."
Sofia had established telepathic check-ins. Every hour, she'd sweep her fifty-meter range, reading surface thoughts. If anyone hostile got that close, she'd know.
"It's not perfect," she said. "If they approach from outside my range and move fast, I might miss them."
"Better than nothing."
"Barely."
But barely was what we had. So we used it.
Day six. Anna—the eight-year-old with tiny wings—approached me during dinner.
She hadn't spoken since arriving. Traumatized into silence. Now she stood in front of me, wings twitching nervously.
"Safe?" she asked. One word. Enormous weight.
I crouched to her level. Met her eyes. "We're going to be."
"Promise?"
I wanted to. Wanted to promise that nothing would hurt her. That the monsters wouldn't come. That she'd wake up tomorrow and the day after in a world that didn't want her dead.
"I promise we'll try," I said instead. "I promise we'll fight to keep you safe. I can't promise we'll win. But we'll try with everything we have."
She considered this. Then nodded. "Okay."
She walked away. Miles appeared at my shoulder.
"Promising to try. That's harder than promising success."
"Success would be a lie. Trying is all I've got."
"It's enough. For her, anyway."
Maybe. I hoped so.
Day seven. Final preparations.
Every motion sensor tested. Every weapon distributed. Every fighter briefed on their position. Every non-combatant knew their evacuation route.
Ruth walked me through the defensive plan one more time.
"James holds the main gate. Bullets can't hurt him much. He's our anchor. Eva and three others flank—fast response to wherever the line breaks. Danny stays back—only uses fire if things go bad. Sofia monitors telepathically and sounds the alarm. You—"
"Coordinate from the middle. I know."
"And don't die stupidly trying to be a hero."
"I'll try."
"Marcus, I'm serious. You're not a fighter. If someone comes at you with a gun, you run. The community needs you alive more than it needs you brave."
"Noted."
She didn't look convinced but moved on.
That night, I walked the perimeter one final time. Checked every sensor. Every tripwire. Every position.
It wasn't enough. Twenty improvised fighters against twenty trained men with guns. We were outmatched. Outgunned. Probably going to lose.
But we'd make them work for it.
The System pulsed.
[DEFENSIVE PREPARATIONS COMPLETE]
[COMBAT READINESS: MODERATE]
[WARNING: ENEMY FORCE APPROACHING]
[ESTIMATED TIME TO CONTACT: 12-18 HOURS]
Twelve hours. Maybe less.
I returned to my quarters. Tried to sleep. Couldn't. Just lay there staring at the ceiling, knowing tomorrow might be the last day New Haven existed.
Or the day we proved we couldn't be burned out.
Ruth found me still awake at midnight.
"Can't sleep either?"
"No."
She sat down. "We did everything we could."
"It's not enough."
"It never is. But it's what we have."
We sat in silence. Two people who'd built something fragile and were about to watch it tested by fire.
"Marcus, if I don't—"
"Don't."
"Someone needs to say it. If I don't make it, Miles takes security. He's not as good, but he's competent."
"You're going to make it."
"Probably. But if I don't, promise me you'll keep building. Don't let this place die because one person fell."
"I promise."
"Good." She stood. "Get some sleep. Tomorrow's going to be hell."
She left. I didn't sleep. Just waited for dawn and whatever came with it.
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