Trade, Trust, and Teeth

Three months.

Boston QZ was quieter in the wrong places and louder in all the others. Patrol routes doubled, curfews tightened, and the alleys where you could once slip out unnoticed now had FEDRA boots posted like clockwork.

I couldn't sneak away as often as before. Not without drawing attention. So I didn't.

But I adapted.

Every spare moment I had, between mandatory schooling, work duty, and pretending to be a normal eleven-year-old whose only rebellion was skipping cafeteria corn mush, I squeezed in side tasks, mini missions, physical training, and quiet inventory shifts in the warehouse. Chipped away at the system's thresholds one scavenger run at a time.

No new grand finds. No miracle crates. Just slow, grinding progress.

And somewhere in the middle of it all, I hit Level 10.

[SYSTEM UPDATE — LEVEL 10 REACHED]

EXP: 0 / 600

System Points: 0

Scavenger Rank Credits: 0

Summon Tokens: +1

New Feature Unlocked — "Credit Exchange Terminal"

You may now use Scavenger Rank Credits to request limited supply drops. Terminal access available via base management submenu.

I spent the last of my 4 System Points on Charisma, maxing it out, or close enough that I could talk a wolf into licking my boots clean if I really tried. The warehouse crew didn't know it, of course, but I could feel the shift. How people paused just a second longer when I spoke. How bartering got easier. How silence weighed more when I used it right.

Lia noticed first.

"You always talk like you know something," she'd said once, squinting at me while we sorted salvaged bolts. "Now it feels like you know a bit more than before."

I didn't answer. Because I didn't. But perception? That was half the game.

The real win came later, when I had the time to get the supplies from the system.

I cashed in my Scavenger Rank Credit.

[SUPPLY REQUEST CONFIRMED]

2 crates of nonperishable rations

1 high-efficiency water purifier (portable)

1 reinforced duffel bag

1 basic medical kit (sealed)

It arrived instantly in front of I almost didn't believe it until I popped the lid and saw the gear wrapped in plastic, tags still stamped with CONFIDENTIAL – DO NOT REDISTRIBUTE.

God bless post-apocalyptic bureaucracy.

I hauled everything back to the warehouse during one of the rare moments when the QZ patrols thinned near the waste sector.

I then made an excuse that I needed to "meet some folks" I then promptly walked back towards the sewer entrance, at least I am getting fucking cardio in. I cant let them know of the system that's why the precaution. After the long walk, near the entrance I stood in middle of a larger clearing, finger hovering over the summon screen.

One token. One guaranteed combat-type.

And a new crew to round out the skeleton team I'd built.

My thumb tapped confirm, the back story already locked in about me finding them, giving them the job, all that shtick. 

[SUMMON COMPLETE – 5 UNITS ARRIVED]

3 Civilian-Grade Survivors

1 Utility-Class Technician

1 Combat Specialist (Background pending…)

The specialist appeared last.

Late 20s. Shaved head. Tight build under a scav-patched flak jacket. He blinked once, eyes adjusting, then locked onto me like he already knew the score.

"Name's Cole," he said. "Former FEDRA — Rhode Island, the QZ fell, I escaped with others, the locals couldn't reassign me. Heard there was work."

His voice was calm. No reverence. No fear. Just that cold utility you hear in people who've survived too long to care about the how.

Oh you scary, strong, beautiful bastard. You will come in handy.

I nodded slowly. "There's work. Welcome to the job."

The four other forms shimmered into reality as well, but only Cole really mattered.

The others? Civilian-grade. Survivors with blank stares and implanted backstories. One looked like an off-duty librarian, another like he'd been bartending during the outbreak. Background noise, useful later, but not important now.

Cole fell in beside me without another word. The rest followed, the useful dead weight. None of them complained, which was good.

I started walking, guiding them through the tunnel like a silent parade of forgotten people.

"Quick brief while we move," I said, not looking back. "You're not here by accident. You were picked because you can pull your weight, or at least not collapse under it, and need a job."

The group trudged forward. Someone coughed behind me. Cole remained silent.

"This place is underground, off the books, and built by sweat, crowbars, and dumb luck. You don't talk about it. You don't leave it without permission. You work, you eat. You break rules, you get left behind. Or worse."

A pause. Let them think about worse.

"We've got three golden rules," I went on. "One: Don't wander. It's not just for your safety — it's for everyone else's. Two: Crates marked with red seals stay shut. No matter what. And three…"

I slowed slightly.

"…There's a welded door on the right in the main room. You never touch it. Don't lean on it, don't look at it, don't even breathe near it wrong. There's something behind it. It's not friendly."

Cole gave a short nod. No disbelief. Just understanding. The others shifted uncomfortably.

We reached the steel entry door. Rusty had left it slightly open, he knew I was coming.

The light inside was dimmer than usual. Most of the team must've been on lunch rotation or resting. A rare window of peace.

Cole looked around first, silent and scanning. His gaze swept across the crate stacks, the half-finished workbench, the makeshift kitchen. The others followed in, slower and more uncertain. One tripped over a cable. Another gawked at the solar strips I'd taped near the overhead vents, they work.

Sometimes, when I pray to the machine spirit.

Tasha was perched on a toolbox like a cat watching prey. Marta was cleaning her knife. Donny hadn't slept again, judging by his eyes. Lia glanced up from a crate of old batteries, gave me a sharp once-over, then went back to sorting.

Rusty emerged from his corner like a mechanic summoned by the scent of strangers. "New batch?"

"Don't worry," I said. "Only one needs wiring instructions."

Cole's eyes narrowed toward the far corner where the red-sealed crates were piled. He didn't ask questions, just noted them.

I assigned sleeping spots on the fly. Old foam, folded blankets, the empty space behind the main shelving wall. No complaints yet. Cole picked the cot near the entrance, back to the wall.

The Relationship Menu flickered once behind my vision.

Cole – LOYAL (Professional Distance)

The other had a mix of, curious, anxious, conditionally loyal etc.

I watched them settle one yawning, another checking for heat from the pipe vents. These aren't some robots, they are, they talked. They made noise. They'd take up food and space. I'd need to account for all of that soon.

Cole crouched near one of the tool crates, eyes locked on the room layout. Calculating. Strategizing. I caught Rusty watching him with mild interest. Maybe respect. Maybe wariness.

"You just keep adding layers, huh?" Rusty said under his breath.

"Gotta grow sometime," I replied. "Better now than too late."

We didn't say anything else.

But I knew the quiet wouldn't last.

Two days later, we had something resembling a business.

Well, a front, technically. But calling it a business made everyone feel better about the constant paranoia.

Lia was the one who brought it up, while balancing a stack of cracked circuit boards on her knee.

"You know we can't keep this hush-hush forever," she said, flipping one board over. "People are going to notice. We either go dark… or go legit enough to blend in."

I didn't answer right away. Instead, I tapped a smudge off the corner of a salvaged clipboard. The idea had been growing in the back of my head ever since the last few trades we pulled off with Robert, a known mover in the market's shadow lanes. Not Firefly, not FEDRA. Just greedy and dangerous enough to deal with both and not get shot.

"We're not going legit," I finally said. "We're going plausible."

That earned me one of her almost-smirks. The kind she gave when she both agreed and didn't want to admit it.

"Robert trusts Hector," she said. "He's been doing minor deliveries for his people for years. Paper-only, nothing dirty. But they know him. He vouched for us on the last crate drop."

That was true. Hector might've looked like the kind of guy who expected to get stabbed in the back during breakfast, but he knew how to file the paperwork just right. Ration depot, minor salvage inventory, generic labour logs, all filed with half a dozen errors that somehow made everything more believable.

With Hector as the mouthpiece and Robert as the buyer, the cover story took shape: a long-abandoned scavenger outfit "rebooted" by a few surviving runners, using old tunnels and backroom barter to rebuild.

Cal Reyes: the silent new owner.

Lia: the one with actual social skills.

Rusty: the mechanic. Nobody questioned a base with a mechanic.

The others? Background noise. Not that I'd say that to their faces. Well, maybe Donny. He'd probably forget it by morning anyway.

The name on the paperwork was "Cracked Wheel Trading," scribbled on a form that had at least three water stains and one cigarette burn. It didn't matter. As long as it looked old and forgotten, people bought it.

"We'll need a delivery chain," Lia said, scrawling notes in the margins of an old ration logbook. "Maybe move things between stalls first, then 'find' them again later, so it looks less like direct handoff."

"And storage?" I asked.

"We can claim Hector uses part of his depot to hold overflow from us. As long as we don't overload it or stick anything obviously illegal in there."

So that's what we did.

The first trade went through three days after Cole arrived, a crate of canned beef hash, two sealed hydro-tabs, and an odd assortment of scalpels and sterile gauze we pulled from a crate that had not been marked red (thankfully).

Robert paid in components: batteries, power converters, and one suspiciously clean combat knife wrapped in old newspaper and other necessary things.

Nothing explosive, nothing flashy. But it worked. The transaction was clean. Hector handled the paperwork. Robert didn't ask questions.

The moment the deal closed, I got the soft system ping I'd been waiting for.

[SIDE MISSION COMPLETE – "Network Established"]+75 EXP+1 Resource Credibility Buff (Temporary – Negotiation +5 for 48 hrs)+1 Reputation Marker: "Small-Scale Trader"

Not bad, though I didn't know what half that meant yet. But it sounded like momentum.

Joe showed up later that day, as he always did, like he'd materialized out of stale air and caution tape. He'd been trailing the supply crates for weeks, "noticing patterns" the way only a half-mad scavenger-turned-gatekeeper could.

"You're making noise," he said, half-grinning through a cracked molar. "The good kind, mostly. Thought I'd throw in a little logistics."

"Didn't know you were a logistics guy."

"I'm not," he said. "But I am very good at knowing when not to ask questions. Also, I can read a manifest faster than most bureaucrats."

I stared at him.

He grinned wider.

"You're in," I said.

He limped off with a clipboard like he'd been born to wield one.

Later, as I sat against a support beam watching the team mill around the makeshift workshop, I caught a glimpse of what we were slowly building, trade, security, a system that could feed itself.

Cole was cleaning his gear, which consisted of the knife from robert, a makeshift metal spear and patching up his FEDRA armour, though the logo and name have long since been scribbled off.

Rusty was humming to himself while building something from three broken radios and a fork.

Lia was arguing with Tasha over the inventory system. Tasha, of course, kept smiling like she already knew how both of them would die. Sigh

Joe leaned against the wall near the light fixture, pretending not to memorize every box in the room.

It was working.

We had trade. We had cover. We had a front.

Now we just had to survive long enough to need it.

The warehouse was never quiet. Not really.

Even in its calmest moments, there was always something the hum of low-voltage solar panels barely clinging to life, the occasional hiss of steam from cracked pipes, or the whisper of someone turning over in their sleep across foam mats and scavenged wool.

But that night, as I stood on the upper scaffold one of few which aren't broken or rusted to hell, well above the main floor, the noise felt... smaller.

Contained.

Manageable.

And that was the problem.

Below me, the team was winding down. Donny was fast asleep, finally, snoring into a coat he used as a pillow. Marta sat with her back to the wall, eating half a protein bar like it might attack her. Tasha paced, slow and deliberate, glancing toward the main room exit like she was waiting for someone who wasn't coming.

Rusty was fiddling with a tangle of wires by the workbench. A small arc sparked. He swore quietly. A good sign, if there was cursing, there was progress.

Lia was off to the side, scribbling notes from the last trade and muttering inventory corrections under her breath. I'd given her a crate lid to use as a writing desk. She still insisted on balancing it on her knees like it was some test of strength.

Cole stood alone near the perimeter, watching the welded door again. Same as he always did. He hadn't said much since he arrived. But he didn't have to. That kind of silence said everything. He was either waiting for orders, or waiting for a problem.

Probably both.

And Joe? Joe was somewhere, or everywhere. I could never really tell. He had a way of blending in with the background like old peeling paint.

It looked... organized. Controlled.

But deep in my gut, that gnawing sense of not enough returned.

Not enough people.

Not enough coverage.

Not enough scale.

We were managing day to day, yeah. Maybe even week to week. But I'd built this like someone trying to balance five spinning plates while juggling a knife and hoping no one noticed the fire in the corner.

The warehouse only had so much room.

The trade routes were thin. If Hector ever got caught, we'd lose our buffer. If Robert ever turned on us, we'd lose our buyer. If FEDRA or the Fireflies so much as sniffed something odd down here, forget cover stories, forget faked ledgers. We'd be a cautionary tale before the next sunrise.

I sat down, one leg dangling over the scaffold edge, and stared at the metal rafters. Tasha passed below, didn't look up, but I could tell she knew I was there.

Weird kid. Useful, though. Too useful, sometimes.

I opened the Base Setup Tracker menu quietly.

Progress: 71% RecognizedCurrent Tier: Partial OutpostUpgrade Available: Requires Expanded Staff / Inventory Growth

Figures.

Even the system agreed, I'd hit a ceiling. I could upgrade again, but only if I brought in more hands, more supply lines, more risk. More needed supplies.

Maybe I should start a garden here?

Maybe a mushroom farm? Wonder if anyone would have a panic attack hearing the word "mushroom." Considering the whole pandemic is just a mushroom that decided humans are better than ants.

But ultimately, I need people. So many more people.

Which meant more mouths. More bunk space. More secrets to keep.

And I couldn't just summon anyone. I was past the days of blind picks. It had to be specialized, smart pulls that added value without shaking the whole operation loose.

Medical? Maybe.

Another technician? Definitely.

But what I really needed, what I knew I needed, was someone with logistics experience. Someone who could run the behind-the-scenes stuff better than me.

I hated it, but the thought sat in my brain like a splinter.

I was good at being clever. At sneaking. At surviving.

But I was no commander. At least not yet.

I'd need someone else for that. Or I'd break trying to fake it.

The worst part?

Even if I found the perfect person… I didn't have the supplies yet to keep them.

That was the bottleneck.

That was the real wall.

More people meant more food, water, medical coverage, tools, and living space, and if I couldn't provide those, the system wouldn't let me summon them. Or worse, they'd come and leave. Or break things. Or die.

I rubbed at my face and sighed.

Growth meant logistics. Logistics meant infrastructure.

And infrastructure meant… well, probably another two dozen scavenger runs, four deals with middlemen, and at least one visit to a clicker-infested wreck just for a working wrench.

I climbed down the scaffold, slowly, as the light dimmed even further.

The warehouse wasn't enough.

But it would be.

Because I was going to make it enough.

One brick. One barter. One calculated lie at a time.

You'd think adding one more person wouldn't change much.

But Cole wasn't one more person. He was a pivot. A ripple in still water.

By the end of his first week, things had shifted, not loudly, not in ways you could chart on a board, but subtly. Like a magnet rearranging metal shavings one inch at a time.

It started with drills.

Not formal training. Just "suggestions" that we all stretch before long hauls, that anyone patrolling the tunnels run quiet drills, that everyone have a fallback point if the lights went out.

He never barked. Never ordered. He just did, and expected others to do the same. And most of them did.

Kev grumbled the loudest. "Not military," he'd mutter, hands full of scrap, "don't need to march to breakfast."

But even he adjusted, if only to avoid being outpaced.

Rusty didn't push back, but he kept his distance. Cole's fixation on structure rubbed against Rusty's free-form chaos. Rusty built things out of junk and impulse; Cole planned like every corner might be an ambush.

They didn't argue. They just avoided arguing. Like two dogs circling, waiting to see if the other would bite first.

Donny was the most affected. Poor guy twitched through his first real "quiet walk" what Cole called his daily no-noise perimeter checks. Cole made him practice breathing. Not moving too fast. Not looking too scared.

By day four, Donny was still twitchy, but at least his boots didn't squeak every step.

Marta, on the other hand, adapted fast. Too fast.

She started mirroring Cole's behaviour taking shorter steps, watching corners, checking her blind spots even in the warehouse. She didn't say much to him. Didn't need to. There was a kind of unspoken recognition there. Like two stray dogs who understood each other's growl.

Tasha? Still weird. Still quiet. Still unsettling. But she liked watching Cole. Not in the way she watched me, that had a knife-behind-the-smile vibe. With Cole, it was more like she was trying to decode a locked safe.

I caught her following his movements once, mimicking his posture when he crouched to check the barricade logs. She smiled when I caught her.

I didn't smile back.

Lia kept her usual measured distance. She didn't trust Cole, not entirely probably because he is ex FEDRA, but she respected how efficient he made things. "It's nice," she admitted one evening, "not being the only one around here who thinks a little paranoia's healthy."

Cole didn't pry. He didn't ask about the origin of the base, the leadership, or why a bunch of scavengers followed an eleven-year-old. He just obeyed, efficiently and cleanly, with the faint air of a man running from something worse.

That didn't mean I trusted him, either.

One night, I passed him sitting near the tunnel entrance. Alone. Cleaning a knife in the dark, methodically, like it was the only thing keeping his mind from wandering too far. I almost said something, but he looked up and said first:

"You're doing better than most officers I served under."

I raised an eyebrow. "That a compliment?"

He gave a half-shrug. "Statement."

Then he went back to sharpening, and I went back to pretending I wasn't quietly cataloguing everyone's ability to betray me.

The Relationship Menu flickered that night:

Cole – LOYAL (Professional Distance)Marta – LOYAL (Aligned Behaviour Detected)Tasha – LOYAL (?)

That last one still glitched sometimes. Or maybe it was just warning me in its own way.

Either way, the warehouse was different now.

No longer just a scrapyard with beds.

It was becoming… something else.

Some days, it felt like everything was made of duct tape and pure bluff.

But this time? This time it worked.

It started small, just a sealed crate labeled "Old Electrics – Damaged" that turned out to be mostly intact tools and a few pristine voltage regulators. The kind of stuff a ration depot or insurgent medic team would kill for.

Lia spotted it while doing inventory.

"FEDRA'd pay for this," she said, tapping the crate like she was testing a melon. "Or the Fireflies. Maybe both."

I squinted at the stamps on the casing. Still legible: PROPERTY OF ZONE 09 // DO NOT REASSIGN.

"We clean it, seal it, and sell it," I said. "Through Hector. Quiet-like."

She gave a slow nod. "I'll talk to my uncle."

By the end of the week, we'd stacked three more crates worth of scrap and semi-functional gear, bundled in canvas and wrapped with what I hoped passed for professional markings. Joe scouted the alley access routes and "advised" us which trucks to avoid, he knew the ones where guards didn't ask questions and the ones that came back with fewer tires than they left with.

"I'd move it Thursday," Joe muttered around a cigarette butt that hadn't been lit in a year. "The shift commander's daughter's got her birthday. He'll be soft."

Hector, ever the cautious middleman, moved like someone being hunted by his own shadow.

He kept his head down, shuffled like he was late for lunch, and never looked directly at the crates we passed to him in the alley behind the ration depot.

"You didn't get this from me," he mumbled, which at this point may as well have been his catchphrase.

The first shipment went to FEDRA.

Old voltage regulators, sealed batteries, two shock-absorbent vests that had somehow stayed dry in their crate.

We didn't get credits, too traceable.

We got food. Real food.

Vacuum-sealed packs, newer ration tins, a couple water pouches with unbroken seals. It was more than we usually scrounged in two weeks.

A day later, Hector came back with a second offer.

"Some people down south. Looking for supplies."

I didn't ask who. Lia didn't either. But we both knew who he meant.

The Fireflies' trade was quieter. No uniforms. No labels. Just a flat, folded tarp filled with wound-seal gel, burn wrap, and a full set of sterilized trauma needles. Medical gear we couldn't have dreamed of scoring this early.

"They think you're running a side salvage outfit," Hector said, eyes flicking around like roaches were listening. "Operating east of the docks. Name stuck."

"What name?"

We came up with so many different names though... I guess being named by others isn't that bad.

He shrugged. "Eastside Salvage. You're welcome."

I wasn't sure whether to thank him or bury him in our generator.

Back at the warehouse, we unloaded the gear in silence.

Everyone noticed, even the less-aware ones. Kev muttered a quiet, "Damn," as he lifted the trauma kit. Marta stared at the sealed food packs like they were gold bars.

Even Cole's eyes lingered a beat too long on the vest pile before he picked one up and started checking seams.

No one said it, but I could feel it. A shift.

We weren't just scraping by anymore.

We were providing. Trading. Earning.

We were a thing now. A presence. A player.

I logged the operation in my mental spreadsheet, already calculating how many shipments we could do per month without attracting the wrong kind of heat.

Not too fast. Not too frequent.

But enough to grow.

The system pinged just after I sat back down at the camp table.

[MISSION COMPLETE – First Profitable Trade]+75 EXP+1 System Point

Lia slid a ration bar across the table without a word.

It was actual chocolate.

I stared at it for a long second.

Then I ate it slowly. Like it was the first real proof that I could do more than survive. Definitely not tearing up, with how good this shit tastes.

Later at night, it was close to midnight when I crept back through the familiar broken alley, passed the two rusting dumpsters, and climbed the stairs as quietly as I could back home.

The QZ was calmer at this hour. Not quieter, the hum of distant patrol cars, the occasional barking order, and the low mutter of power relays still rolled across the rooftops like static but there were fewer eyes. Fewer questions.

My room was dark, just the way I liked it. The power grid had been flickering all week, so I didn't risk the light. I closed the door with a slow, practiced motion, then peeled off my jacket and let the silence settle over me.

Only then did I let myself think.

Three months.

That's how long it took. Not just to survive. Not just to maintain.

To grow.

The warehouse wasn't just a hideout anymore — it was a working base. My summons had names, sleeping spaces, grudges, weird habits, and full-blown routines. Crates were getting opened. Gear was getting moved. Trade was real. Robert's people respected our shipments. FEDRA and Fireflies both had unknowingly bought from the same ghost operation, with no one the wiser.

And I had pulled it off.

Not with guns or speeches. Not with fire and revolution.

With planning. With silence. With care.

I sat on my mattress — real, spring-supported, moderately awful mattress — and stretched out my legs, still sore from the daily sprint circuit the system insisted I do. It was quiet in the apartment. My parents were asleep. Probably too tired from supply reports and radio logs to notice I came back late. Again.

In the dim glow of streetlight through the blinds, I looked out at the buildings across the street. The same ones I saw every night since I could remember. Most were dead, hollow shells. A few still had flickering windows, people living quiet, forgettable lives.

I couldn't do that anymore.

Not with what I knew. Not with what I was building.

The system hadn't chimed all day, and I thought maybe, just maybe, it was giving me the night off.

It wasn't.

[NEW QUEST UNLOCKED – "Build the Network"]Description: Establish at least 1 consistent, reliable supply/trade line. Maintain operational secrecy. Avoid detection.Reward: Strategic Upgrade Path Unlocked

I let the words sit there for a moment.

Not unexpected. But still… heavy.

The network.

That's what this was becoming. Not just a fluke operation. Not just my personal trick. It was growing, threading through the cracks of the QZ and beyond — like mold, or roots, or a nervous system nobody could see. Not yet.

I closed the prompt and leaned back, eyes wide open in the dark.

No turning back now.

I had one foot in the civilian world, the other in something else entirely. A secret war of crates, whispers, and survivors who didn't know they were summoned.

And the stakes were only going up.

Tomorrow I'd have to start laying the groundwork — checking which trade links held, which ones might fracture. Talk to Joe about route timings. Make sure Cole didn't scare off the new batch. Remind Donny not to fall asleep near open crates again.

But for tonight?

Tonight I'd rest.

And dream if the system allowed it of something better than duct tape, ration biscuits, and reinforced lies.

Because this time… I wasn't just trying to survive.

I was building something meant to last.