David was an unyielding force, a drill sergeant resurrected from a forgotten war. "Move! Faster! You think the infected are going to wait for you to catch your breath?" His voice, low and gravelly, cut through the morning chill on the Fort Hamilton training grounds.
Alex bit back a groan. Every muscle in his body screamed. His leg, heavily bruised from the collapsed shelf at One World Trade, throbbed with a dull ache that intensified with every lunge, every sprint. The rifle David had handed him felt heavy, awkward, a foreign object in hands once accustomed to keyboards and touchscreens. His shots were wildly off target, kicking up dust meters from the silhouette targets. He was clumsy, stumbling, his body a symphony of aches and growing frustration.
"My expertise is in derivatives, David, not… tactical evasions," he muttered, wiping sweat from his brow, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
David's gaze was unyielding. "Your expertise now, Alex, is survival. Adapt or die. Your choice."
It was a brutal, relentless regimen. Hours of weapon drills, hand-to-hand combat basics, navigating mock obstacles, and grueling physical conditioning. Alex pushed himself, driven by the gnawing memory of his helplessness, the desperate screams from the city, and the chilling words of the President's broadcast. He needed to adapt. He needed to be useful. He watched other soldiers, seasoned and efficient, and tried to emulate them, but the gulf felt impossibly wide.
Then there was Iris.
Alex watched her, a silent, growing wonder. She didn't just learn; she absorbed. The rifle, clumsy in his hands, was a natural extension of hers. Her shots were uncanny, grouping tightly around the bullseye almost immediately. Her movements were fluid, precise, executing drills with a natural grace that far surpassed his own, and even outmatched some of the hardened soldiers around them. David, standing behind them, masked his awe with gruff instructions, but Alex saw the fleeting concern in his eyes. Iris was terrifyingly good, becoming awesome in a way that defied explanation. He'd seen her strength and speed in New York; here, it was honed, disciplined, but still impossibly, unsettlingly fast. His analytical mind, despite the exhaustion, was forced to grapple with the impossibility of what she was. He kept his observations to himself, a new, silent curiosity burning beneath his weariness.
The grueling training, paradoxically, became a catalyst for their bond. They flopped down together after sprints, gasping for breath, sharing a grimace that sometimes softened into a tired smile. Iris subtly corrected Alex's grip on his rifle once when David wasn't looking, her fingers brushing his, sending a strange jolt through him. He'd offer her his last swig of water, or a quiet word of encouragement when her own frustration flared after a difficult drill. Brief, whispered conversations about their past lives, the horrors they'd seen, and fleeting moments of dark humor bound them tighter.
Alex found himself increasingly drawn to Iris's quiet strength, her fierce resilience, the unwavering spark in her hazel eyes that refused to be extinguished. He saw beyond the teenage girl, seeing the warrior she was becoming. A fragile romantic tension, a human warmth in the apocalypse's cold embrace, began to flicker between them, subtly woven into every shared glance, every quiet gesture of support.
Meanwhile, David's quiet but relentless gathering of intelligence continued. He spent hours in hushed conversations with Major Evans and Captain Miller, their voices low, urgent, poring over maps and fragmented reports. The global situation was dire, confirming the President's grim broadcasts. More countries were falling. The Cerebral Necrosis Virus (CNV) had become a global plague.
He intercepted fragmented military communications, filtering through layers of static and code. Words like "unique biological profiles" and "retrieving assets from Ground Zero" became increasingly frequent. David felt a cold knot tighten in his gut. They were actively looking for people like Iris. And he knew, with chilling certainty, that if they found her, she'd be a tool, a specimen, not a daughter. He ran a hand over his own arm, a phantom touch to the scar that wouldn't yet exist. His paranoia for Iris, and now implicitly for himself, deepened. He pushed their training harder, knowing their time here, under the government's eye, was limited.
The Fort Hamilton's facade of order began to fray. Rations, once adequate, became noticeably tighter. The mess hall lines grew longer, the food blander, the murmurs of discontent more pronounced. Overcrowding led to petty conflicts among the hundreds of refugees crammed into barracks and temporary shelters. Basic illnesses, non-CNV related, spread easily in the close quarters, straining the already overwhelmed medical teams.
The external threats escalated. The sounds of distant skirmishes and zombie activity outside the perimeter became much more frequent, louder, and closer. Patrols reported increasingly agitated and numerous zombie hordes. The constant, low hum of the base's perimeter defenses was now punctuated by the sharper blare of warning sirens, sending soldiers scrambling to reinforced positions.
David, leaning against a cold concrete wall, watched a fresh batch of weary, terrified refugees being ushered in. Their faces reflected the horrors he knew too well. He listened to the distant, relentless thud-thud-thud of heavy artillery fire from beyond the outer walls, a sound that meant the line was barely holding. Fort Hamilton, the mirage of safety, was dissolving into the grim reality of a temporary cage. He knew, with a soldier's chilling certainty, that it would not hold. The decision was already made. He had to plan their next escape, a silent, solitary burden, before the choice was taken from them completely.