The turbines below whispered their low song, steady as a pulse through the dam's concrete bones. Michael woke before the others, slipping from the warmth of the service room without a sound. The air outside the bunk was knife-sharp, smelling of oil, rust, and old water.
The workshop was alive with their crude creations. Alice's sawblade cleaver gleamed on a bench, Kyle's half-finished axe tangled with copper wiring, Lena's careful bundle of arrows propped against the wall. Michael reached for his own weapon: a hatchet reinforced with wiring and a salvaged battery. He swung it once; the blade hissed faintly, sparks licking the air. Brutal. Precise.
On the worktable lay his map sketched and corrected by hand over days of patrols. He traced lines across it with a gloved finger: choke points, abandoned cabins, a ridge marked as high ground. West of the dam remained mostly blank. That emptiness gnawed at him. Empty space meant surprises. Surprises meant death.
The system stirred in his mind like a quiet reminder:
> [Quest Updated: Reconnaissance Scout the Western Hills. Reward: Perimeter Alert System Blueprint.]
Michael tucked the map away. He would've gone anyway.
By sunrise he was riding out, the cold stinging his cheeks. The trail climbed into the forest, snow crunching under his horse's hooves. Pines stood like black pillars, frost clinging to every branch. He marked landmarks as he moved a half-frozen ford across the river, a ranch where wild horses still lingered, a ridge with sightlines into three valleys. Each note was a choice waiting to matter.
By midday, smoke smudged the horizon. Michael dismounted, crouching low, glass pressed to his eye.
A ranger station nestled against the treeline, converted into a fort with sandbags and scrap. The Firefly symbol was spray-painted in yellow across its walls. Raiders swarmed the perimeter, firebombs arcing into the compound, rifles hammering. Inside, defenders fired back, but the numbers were wrong. The Fireflies were cornered.
Radio static bled into the air.
> " Command says no reinforcements. We're written off. Hold if you can."
Michael's jaw tightened. He studied the ground the way he'd once studied kill zones. Raiders pressed from three sides. Ammo low. Defenders exhausted. Another hour and the station would fall.
He could've turned back. His people were safe behind thick walls. But if raiders won here, they'd push further. They'd smell the dam next. And Michael had no patience for predators growing bold.
He steadied his rifle.
The first shot cracked through the valley, dropping a raider in the trees. The second followed, skull bursting red against the snow. Confusion rippled. Shouts rose. By the time they searched the ridge, Michael was already gone, sliding through the forest's shadows.
He came up behind two raiders crouched together. One fumbled with a Molotov, the other covering him. Michael surged forward, the hatchet sparking as it bit into the first man's neck. Current snapped, his body convulsing as the bottle fell and shattered harmlessly. The second turned too late the blade punched into his sternum, electricity crackling through bone.
Gunfire flared from the compound. Michael sprinted into open ground, drawing eyes and fire. Bullets chewed bark behind him as he dove behind a boulder. He steadied his rifle and fired into the raider leader a hulking brute wearing an antlered skull helmet. The man spun down, roaring curses, blood soaking his shoulder.
Michael pressed forward with sharp, surgical violence. A knife slid under a jaw. The hatchet buried in a chest. Sparks and blood, fast and final. He lit a flare, tossing it into brush where three raiders huddled. Orange light and smoke blinded them. Michael struck hard one stabbed through the base of the skull, another shoved screaming into the fire, a third silenced by a thrown blade to the throat.
The leader rose again, fumbling shells into his shotgun. He bellowed as he fired, pellets tearing bark inches from Michael's skull. Pain lanced his calf a grazing hit. Michael gritted his teeth, rolled, chambered a shot, and put a round through the man's chest. He dropped. Michael closed, driving the hatchet under his jaw, electricity flaring until the man twitched and went limp.
The rest broke. Shouts and curses scattered into the trees. Michael let them go. He stood among the bodies, chest heaving, breath fogging in the cold.
The Firefly gate creaked open. Two men stepped out cautiously, rifles raised. One wore the insignia stitched to his sleeve, the other's arm was bound in bloody cloth.
"You by yourself?" the uninjured one called.
Michael wiped blood from his face. "Seemed like you needed a hand."
They traded glances. "Name's Frank. This is Ty."
"Michael."
Inside, the outpost was wreckage. Sandbags shredded, walls scorched black. Eight survivors remained, ragged and hollow-eyed. A teenage boy clutched a rifle too big for him, staring at Michael like he was nightmare and salvation all at once.
Frank spoke low, bitter. "We started with fifteen. Command said hold, they'd send support. Then nothing. Just silence. They left us to die."
Michael looked around at the wounded, the burned walls, the corpses piled against the fence. He thought of the dam, of Alice bending over blueprints, of Kyle's gruff bark turning into drills, of Lena stringing wire across choke points. They were building something.
"If you stay here, raiders finish what they started," Michael said. "Pack what you can. You're coming with me."
The march east was slow but steady. Michael kept the pace even, guiding them through the safer crossings, skirting meadows where wild horses grazed, marking new threats along the way. His calf throbbed where the pellet had grazed, but he ignored it.
By dusk, the dam rose ahead concrete spine across the river, smoke curling from its chimneys. Alice whistled from the gate; Michael answered. The doors opened.
Alice stood at the front, rag in her hand, grease streaking her face. Kyle leaned on his shotgun, Lena at his side, wary.
"Who are they?" Alice asked, eyes flicking over the strangers.
"Fireflies," Michael said. "Left to die by their own. We're taking them in."
Alice's gaze lingered on the wounded, then she nodded. "Get them inside."
Lena frowned. "We don't have food for this."
Michael's eyes met hers. "We'll find more. But we don't leave people for the wolves."
She looked away, but the tension in her jaw eased.
Inside, Alice helped Ty tend the wounded. Kyle barked for blankets. Lena distributed what little food they had. The Fireflies moved stiffly, still half in shock. The boy ate in silence, never taking his eyes off Michael.
That night, firelight lit the turbine hall. Michael told them the truth: the ambush, the fight, the betrayal over comms. He didn't dress it up. He didn't need to.
Kyle jabbed at the flames. "So what are we now? A refugee camp?"
Michael shook his head. "We protect our own. And we decide who that is. Not raiders, not Fireflies, not anyone else. Just us."
Frank sat nearby, eyes unreadable in the firelight. The others whispered among themselves.
Later, when the hall quieted, Michael sat alone with the dam's old maintenance log. He'd begun using it as a journal, scrawling rough entries in pencil. Tonight he wrote:
Patched the south wall. Killed raiders. Saved eight abandoned strangers. They're tired. Hungry. Human.
Food is low. Medicine lower. But the dam stands. And for now, so do we.
He closed the book. The turbines hummed beneath the floor, wolves howled far off in the valley, and the fire burned steady.
Michael leaned back against the cold wall, blood drying on his hands, and allowed himself a thought he'd once considered dangerous.
Hope.