Moments after the radio went dead, no one spoke.
Not a chair scraped. Not a keyboard clicked. Even the monitors seemed to dim their glow, scrolling data no one was ready to look at yet.
The silence wasn't peaceful.
It was the kind that settled after something irreversible had been said.
Ellis stood near the glass wall, hands braced against the counter, staring at nothing. Outside, the base burned in pockets—small fires licking at structures that had once been ordered, controlled. Shadows moved where soldiers had once drilled. The perimeter lights were gone, swallowed by smoke and distance.
Hunter Army Airfield was no longer a fortress.
It was a graveyard with walls.
Behind him, Mike stood still for once.
No humming.
No jokes.
No sarcasm to soften the blow.
Finally, he exhaled.
"You know you have to go," Mike said quietly.
Ellis didn't turn around.
"The fate of the world," Mike continued, voice rougher than usual, "is sitting in your brain right now. And you know it."
Ellis closed his eyes.
He did know.
That truth had followed him his entire career—through deployments, through classified projects, through late nights when Sharon had fallen asleep alone while he stared at data that never stopped bleeding into the real world.
"I bought them time," Ellis said at last.
Mike nodded. "You did."
Ellis's jaw tightened. "Maybe enough."
He loved his family. Fiercely. Without condition. But loving them had never been simple.
Being a husband.
Being a father.
Being a doctor.
Being a soldier.
Those roles had been at war inside him for years.
Sharon had called him out on it more times than he could count—him always choosing the bigger picture, the long game, the work that mattered to everyone instead of the people standing right in front of him.
"You don't get to save the world if you lose us," she'd said once.
And he hadn't known how to answer.
Because she was right.
And he was still who he was.
"This is bigger than me," Ellis said now. "Bigger than them."
Mike leaned against the counter beside him. "Doesn't make it hurt less."
Ellis shook his head. "No."
The lab hummed back to life slowly—keys tapping, samples being logged, technicians moving again because stopping wasn't an option anymore.
Mike glanced at a nearby monitor, then hesitated.
"There is… one thing," he said.
Ellis turned.
Mike's mouth twitched. "Remember the Jeep?"
Ellis frowned. "What about it?"
"The one you got Justin," Mike said. "The ridiculous 2026 Wrangler. Extended edition. You practically cried handing him the keys."
Ellis's chest tightened. "What about it, Mike?"
Mike lifted a brow. "You don't buy military-grade toys without bells and whistles."
Ellis froze.
"Mike," he said slowly, "what are you saying?"
Mike turned toward a terminal and started typing. "That thing has a built-in GPS tracker. Anti-theft. Remote diagnostics. The works."
Ellis was already moving.
"Pull it up," he snapped.
Mike stepped aside.
The screen populated.
Coordinates blinked to life.
Ellis leaned in.
Home.
Justin had made it home.
Relief hit so hard it almost buckled his knees.
"Okay," Ellis breathed. "Okay."
Then his eyes dropped to the timestamp.
The Jeep left again.
After.
After the power failed.
After the alerts would have gone out.
After the world started coming apart.
"Why would he leave?" Ellis muttered.
He pulled up additional data.
Tally's car—last location: home.
Sharon's—hospital.
Justin's path traced across the city in jagged lines. Detours. Stops. Long pauses that made Ellis's stomach twist.
Then—
A red dot blinked.
A store.
Ellis stared at it.
"Why the fuck did he stop there?" he snapped.
Mike leaned in. "Ellis—"
"Pull surveillance," Ellis barked. "Anything. Traffic cams. Street feeds. I don't care."
A tech scrambled.
"Corner camera," she said. "Feed's degraded but—here."
The image flickered.
Grainy. Shaky.
But unmistakable.
Ellis leaned closer.
"That's him," he said instantly.
Two figures stood near the Jeep.
Justin.
Alive.
Ellis felt his heart kick hard against his ribs.
Then the camera caught movement.
From the edge of the frame.
From everywhere.
Dozens.
Shambling at first.
Then faster.
A wave.
Ellis counted without meaning to.
Too many.
"Mike…" he whispered.
The screen filled with motion.
A horde.
Fifty. Maybe more.
Closing in.
Ellis stepped back like he'd been punched.
"No," he breathed. "No, no, no—"
Mike grabbed his arm. "Ellis—"
"That's my son," Ellis said hoarsely. "That's my boy."
The feed cut out.
Static replaced the image.
Ellis stood frozen, chest heaving, mind racing through distances, time, impossible math.
Somewhere beyond the burning base, beyond the sealed doors and the data and the choices that would damn him either way—
Justin Leesburg was standing in the path of the dead.
Ellis clenched his fists.
"Get me everything," he said, voice shaking with fury and terror. "Every camera. Every signal. Every scrap of data."
Mike nodded, already moving.
Ellis stared at the blank screen.
For the first time since this began, the science didn't matter.
The cure didn't matter.
The world didn't matter.
Only this—
"I'm coming," Ellis whispered.