Michael had once stumbled upon a bizarre historical anecdote online regarding the phrase "injected with chicken blood"—a term now synonymous with frenzied, almost manic enthusiasm. The story, likely apocryphal but deliciously odd, told of a captured enemy officer from decades past who, facing execution, bartered for his life with a strange "secret recipe": regular injections of fresh rooster blood. This concoction, he claimed, could cure all ailments, boost vitality, and potentially grant longevity. The "therapy," fueled by desperate hope and pseudoscience, had briefly become a national craze. People would queue at clinics with their plumpest roosters, seeking that transient flush of vitality caused by the immune system's frantic reaction to foreign proteins. It was, of course, utter quackery, eventually debunked and relegated to the annals of internet slang.
But as Michael stepped out of the comms shack, blinking in the harsh morning light, he witnessed an enthusiasm that made the "chicken blood" craze look positively sedate. The effect of his speech had been nothing short of alchemical. The entire population of Sweetwater Gulch was moving with a collective, electric energy that hummed in the very air.
It was a chaotic, glorious spectacle. Men, women, and their half-naked children were a whirlwind of activity, dragging their meager possessions from hovels and tents. The air was thick with dust, shouts, and the screech of protesting nails on wood. To his utter horror, he saw several families, already cleared out, enthusiastically beginning to dismantle their own shelters with hammers and bare hands.
A wave of sheer exasperation washed over him. He pinched the bridge of his nose, a headache blooming behind his eyes. These people had the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Whirling around, he stormed back into the comms shack, snatched the microphone, and bellowed into it, his voice amplified to a god-like roar across the settlement.
"Who's the bloody genius who decided now was the time to start demolishing houses?" he yelled, his voice cracking with a mix of fury and disbelief. "Have you lost your minds? I haven't even sourced the rebar, cement, or bricks yet! Where exactly are you planning to sleep tonight? Under the stars with the rad-scorpions? Use your heads! There's a thing called a plan!"
The amplified tirade had the effect of a bucket of cold water. The frantic activity froze. People looked at each other, then at the half-dismantled structures, and finally at the loudspeakers. A moment of stunned silence was broken by a wave of embarrassed, self-conscious laughter that rippled through the crowd. The sheer, ridiculous over-eagerness of it all suddenly became apparent.
Michael couldn't really blame them. The vision he'd painted—of electric lights, running water, and multi-story houses—was, to them, a fairy tale so potent it bordered on religious prophecy. It was a siren song they were physically unable to resist. He'd heard whispers of wounded men purposely aggravating their injuries just to extend their stay in the three-story lodge with its solar power and running water for a few more days. The allure was that powerful.
As the awkward chuckles subsided, a woman with distinct canine features—a dog-blooded hybrid—planted her hands on her hips. She tilted her head back, addressing the loudspeaker horn nailed to her own shack as if it were a telephone directly to Michael.
"Harry Potter, sir!" she shouted, her voice carrying even without amplification. "You just give the orders! We'll do whatever you say! And if anyone slacks off," she added, her voice turning into a growl, "you won't need to punish them. We'll take care of it ourselves!"
For good measure, she tacked on a domestic threat aimed squarely at her own husband, the guardsman Onyile, who was currently facepalming in the background. "That goes for my own Onyile too! If he dares to be lazy, I'll take the kids and find a harder-working man, I swear I will!"
A murmur of agreement, mixed with speculative glances from the single mercenaries towards the admittedly homely but fiercely loyal hybrid women, ran through the crowd. Michael couldn't hear individual voices from the shack, but a moment later, a unified roar rose from the assembled masses, a wave of sound that washed over him.
"WE'RE WITH YOU, SIR!" "JUST TELL US WHAT TO DO!"
A genuine smile, the first unforced one in days, spread across Michael's face. The sleepless night, the frantic planning—it had all been worth it. The engine was primed; now was the time to fire it.
He emerged from the shack, grabbing a shovel from beside the door. "Alright, listen up!" he yelled, his voice now natural but carrying the same authority. "All non-essential personnel—that means anyone who isn't wounded, on guard duty, or in the medical team—grab your tools and follow me! We're moving out!"
His eyes scanned the crowd and landed on the mortified Onyile. "Onyile! You're on sanitation detail. Take a crew, find a spot downwind, and start digging a massive pit for a proper latrine. And everyone mark my words," his voice dropped to a menacing, theatrical growl, "from now on, that latrine is the onlyplace for business. Anyone I catch fertilizing the wrong patch of ground will find their 'fertilizing equipment' confiscated. Permanently."
This elicited a roar of laughter from the women, who appreciated the crude, direct humor. Michael waited for it to die down, then added with a deadpan stare, "Or maybe we'll just cement it shut. Your choice."
With that, the great exodus to the fields began. A river of people, sporting an assortment of hats scavenged from pre-Collapse advertising, flowed out of the main gate, carrying shovels, picks, and hoes. The mood was less like a labor detail and more like a pilgrimage.
Michael divided the forces. A contingent stayed to continue work on the irrigation canal, now being lined with a crude but effective mixture of local limestone and clay to prevent seepage. The main body, however, followed him to a vast, flat expanse of荒地 about a kilometer from the walls.
Here, the real work began. The stronger men and women swung picks and shovels, their muscles bunching as they tore into the hard, unforgiving earth, turning over great clods of dry, nutrient-starved soil. Those with less brute strength, including older children, followed behind, breaking the larger clumps apart with hammers or the backs of their tools. Their fingers, nimble and practiced from a lifetime of scavenging, picked through the dirt, removing every stone, every withered root, every fragment of the old world's debris. The cleaned soil was piled high, ready for the next phase.
It was backbreaking, monotonous work, the sun beating down mercilessly. Yet, fueled by a collective dream, they worked with a will that defied the conditions. By the time the call for the midday meal echoed across the field, a staggering twenty acres of land had been deeply tilled and meticulously cleaned—a testament to the power of shared purpose.
Michael, his own shirt soaked with sweat, surveyed the progress with a critical, professional eye. This was just the beginning. This freshly turned earth was what farmers called "raw land" or "virgin soil." Planting in it now would be a futile gesture; the yield would be pitiful, not even worth the seed. Traditionally, such land required years of amendment with ash and compost to become fertile "mature land."
But Michael had no intention of waiting years. The irrigation canal was meant for more than just future watering; an initial, deep flooding would help leach out salts and begin breaking down the compacted earth. The latrine pit Onyile was digging was the first step toward producing vast quantities of nutrient-rich compost. These traditional methods would accelerate the process dramatically.
And then there was his secret weapon, waiting back in his warehouse in the other world: twenty tons of urea fertilizer. A sprinkle of that modern alchemy, and this barren ground would leap towards fertility. Along with rolls of agricultural plastic for mulch, he had the tools to make this desert bloom.
He looked out at the sweating, determined faces, at the growing expanse of tilled earth, and then back towards the makeshift settlement. He would turn this former scrapyard, this "Cinder Town," into the jewel of the wasteland. It was no longer just a hope; it was a promise, being carved into the very earth, one shovelful at a time.