Back in Bram

  “Tell me the truth,” Kai said quietly.

  “Can Bram survive this?”

  No one answered immediately.

  The command center hummed with machines and flickering monitors as evacuation signals blinked across the screens. Survivors were still arriving from the capital’s northern road.

  Kai stood with his arms crossed, watching the reports update in real time.

  “How was general group?”

  Gideon didn’t look up from the console. His fingers moved quickly across the keyboard as another transmission scrolled across the display.

  “Our advance team secured the evacuation zone outside the north exit,” he said. “Survivors are arriving in small waves. Our teams are helping to clear the route.”

  “And Linda?”

  Gideon checked another feed and nodded. “Still inbound. Last contact was about an hour ago. If nothing slows them down, they should reach us in half an hour.”

  Kai gave a small nod, though the tension in his shoulders didn’t ease.

  Half an hour could mean a lot of things now.

  He turned toward the other side of the room.

  Dr. Ray sat at the command table, surrounded by printouts and scattered data pads. Virus models, infection projections, infrastructure estimates—numbers layered over numbers until the desk looked more like a battlefield map than research.

  Kai studied him for a moment.

  “Tell me the truth,” he asked toward him. “Can we survive this? Ray!!”

  Ray didn’t answer immediately. His eyes moved across the last line of data before he set the tablet down.

  “That depends,” he said at last.

  Kai waited.

  Ray looked up.

  “Are you ready to treat everyone over fifteen like a soldier… or a laborer?”

  Kai’s brow tightened. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean martial law,” Ray replied calmly. “Effective immediately. Everyone works. Everyone fights. There’s no room left for spectators.”

  The words settled heavily in the room.

  Kai exhaled through his nose.

  “And the defenses?”

  Ray slid a schematic across the table. Lines of reinforcement routes and construction estimates filled the page.

  “We don’t need perfection,” Ray said. “Just enough structure to slow them down. Five meters of reinforced barrier, we can finish in no time.”

  “How much time?”

  “A month,” Ray said.

  Kai looked up sharply.

  Ray met his gaze without blinking.

  “It’s all we can afford. We need to survive without the finish wall one month, after that the population might begin adapting to the virus. Then we can have a breather.”

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  “And if we don’t?”

  Ray didn’t answer.

  He didn’t need to.

  Kai’s hands clenched slowly at his sides.

  Responsibility pressed down on him from every direction—survivors arriving by the hour, construction crews working 24/7, soldiers preparing for a fight none of them truly understood yet.

  “We finish the foundations,” Kai said finally. “Conscript the townsfolk. Everyone contributes as much as possible.”

  Ray gave a faint nod. “Don’t worry, I will handle it.”

  Kai turned back to the monitors.

  New signals flickered along the northern road.

  More survivors.

  More unknown movement behind them.

  “Good,” he said quietly. “Because when Linda arrives, we’re going to need every resource we have.”

  Ray leaned back slightly in his chair.

  “Oh, speaking of preparation,” he said.

  Kai glanced over.

  Ray gestured toward him with a pen.

  “I’ve already introduced the Limiter into Bram’s water supply.”

  Kai blinked.

  For a moment his pupils shrank to pinpoints.

  “You what? Ha… The timing, it’s a mess.”

  Ray’s lips curled faintly.

  “The concentration is low. Once diluted through the town reservoir, it won’t harm anyone. But it should give the population a baseline resistance.”

  Kai stared at him.

  A short breath escaped his nose.

  “I hope they can take it.”

  Ray shrugged lightly.

  “We no longer have the luxury.”

  His silver eyes glinted in the monitor light.

  “Besides,” he added with a thin smile, “desperate times tend to reward decisive experiments.”

  Kai looked back at the screens.

  The capital had already fallen.

  And Bram, hope for every one of his groups.

  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Bram — Voss Group Lab compound, Temporary Cell

  Doyke stared at the ceiling.

  The plaster above him was cracked in thin spider lines, the fluorescent light humming faintly. He had been staring at that same crack for several minutes now, trying to make sense of the last few hours.

  Not long ago, Kai’s proposal had sounded almost ideal.

  Investment. Infrastructure. Security. Bram turning into something bigger than a forgotten town on the edge of nowhere.

  And Doyke becoming its mayor.

  At the time, it had felt like progress.

  Now the world outside was burning.

  Monsters roamed the cities. A virus with no origin was turning people into things that hunted their own kind. The news feeds were chaos, every report worse than the last.

  And somewhere in the middle of all that—

  Gideon had knocked him unconscious.

  His fingers reached behind his neck, pressing the tender spot just under the hairline. The skin there still felt swollen.

  The chip.

  He could almost feel it sitting under the bone.

  Doyke’s jaw tightened.

  The memory of the cell came back to him then. The metal bars. The dim lights.

  And the thing inside.

  The werewolf had lifted its head when he approached. Its eyes had locked on him through the bars—yellow, feral… but not empty.

  There had been something inside them.

  Recognition.

  Like the creature had once been human.

  Like it still knew it.

  Doyke exhaled slowly and pushed himself to his feet.

  First things first.

  Bram.

  This town had been his home for decades. He had buried friends here. Watched children grow up in its streets.

  He stepped toward the door where the guard stood.

  “I need to speak with Mr. Kai,” Doyke said. “Now.”

  The guard didn’t argue.

  “Understood. Please wait.”

  Only a few minutes passed before the door opened again.

  Kai stepped inside.

  His expression was calm, almost distant, but the tension in his shoulders betrayed the strain beneath it. He pulled out a chair and sat across from Doyke.

  “You called?” he asked.

  Doyke leaned forward.

  “Once these chips go in,” he said, voice steady, “does that mean Bram falls completely under Voss Group control?”

  Kai didn’t hesitate.

  “Yes.”

  The word landed like a stone.

  Doyke felt heat rise in his chest—anger, pride, something close to betrayal.

  But Kai didn’t argue. Didn’t justify.

  Instead, he simply pointed toward Doyke’s SW band.

  “Check the breaking news feed,” Kai said. “Then ask me again.”

  And just like that, he stood.

  By the time Doyke looked up, the door had already closed behind him.

  Doyke stared after him for a moment before activating the screen.

  The feed opened instantly.

  Footage poured across the display.

  Not polished broadcasts.

  Raw recordings.

  Unedited.

  A highway filled with overturned cars and bodies.

  A military unit firing into a swarm of creatures pouring out of a subway station.

  The capital—what remained of it—burning under a sky thick with smoke.

  One clip showed something massive tearing through a concrete building like it was cardboard. Another showed a group of soldiers dragging civilians through the wreckage while something hunted them through the dust.

  Cities he recognized.

  Places he had visited.

  Gone.

  The virus hadn’t just spread.

  It had devoured.

  Doyke’s hands trembled slightly as he lowered the screen.

  For a long moment, he said nothing.

  Then he stood.

  Slowly.

  The anger was still there—but it had changed.

  Bram was still standing.

  And if the world outside was collapsing…

  Then someone had to make sure this town didn’t follow.

  Doyke straightened his coat and walked for the door.

  He had a town to protect.

  Whatever it took.