CHAPTER 878: CHAPTER 878 THE PLAN

He had no idea who Kisha truly was, whether she belonged to some shadow unit of the intelligence division or an unknown government agency capable of pulling off the impossible, but the certainty in her smirk made him believe she could back up every word.

And then it hit him. She hadn’t answered his question about how long it would take to dismantle the microchips. Instead, she’d simply implied it was already done. ’When did she even discover the existence of the chips?How long had she been working on disabling them?’ His mind scrambled for answers, but he couldn’t be sure of anything anymore.

Despite his hesitation, there was something in her eyes, calm, unreadable, and unwavering, that told him she wasn’t bluffing.

"The President ordered the soldiers to rescue the researchers and professors from City D... to begin human experimentation."

The Commander spoke the words slowly, then closed his eyes, bracing for the explosion. He waited for the telltale sting in his spine or the searing pain at the base of his skull. Any second now, the implanted microchip should’ve reacted to the trigger phrases.

Seconds ticked by.

Nothing happened.

Not even a tingling in his lips or a pop in his shoulder, nothing exploded.

He let out a shaky breath, almost disbelieving. Those words, "human experimentation" and "rescue the researchers and professors from City D", were hard-coded kill triggers. Saying them aloud used to mean instant death. He hadn’t said them out of recklessness. He just desperately wanted to believe what Kisha told him, that she had successfully dismantled the control chip inside his body.

And this was the only way to be sure.

In the past, even thinking those phrases would trigger the chip. A splitting migraine would follow, like a blade raking across his brain. The device had been designed to detect neural activity tied to forbidden thoughts. But speaking them out loud? That would have activated the fail-safe: immediate and fatal detonation.

Unless he could somehow bypass thinking altogether and transmit information without cognition, which was impossible, there was no way to share what he knew. Even writing was dangerous. The moment he tried to form the words in his head, the chip would pick up on the neural patterns and respond with punishing frequency waves, gradually liquefying his brain with vibration.

In theory, he might be able to scribble a few sentences before passing out... or dropping dead.

But now, he’d spoken the worst of the trigger words, and nothing happened.

For the first time in a while, he felt the weight of the invisible leash around his mind loosen. And for the first time, he allowed himself to believe, he might finally be free.

"Go on..." Kisha urged, a deep, knowing smile tugging at her lips, as if to say, ’I’ve already done my part.’

And just like that, the Commander General broke into sobs.

"Can you really save my family?" he asked, his voice cracking with desperation.

Kisha’s brow arched. This was the first time she’d seen this man, usually so arrogant, so cold, cry. The same man she remembered hating in her past life. He had always struck her as nothing more than a cowardly puppet of the President: selfish, spineless, and complicit in countless atrocities.

But then, an unwelcome thought crept into her mind.

’What if...’

What if his cowardice was a survival tactic? What if, in the face of a monstrous regime, the only thing he knew how to do was to submit and obey, not out of loyalty, but out of fear?

Not for himself... but for them.

’What if’ he became the President’s pawn willingly, swallowing his pride and turning a blind eye to the cruelty, just to keep his family safe? Maybe that was his only way to protect them, to shield them from becoming collateral damage like so many others.

It was selfish... but also human.

Maybe he had never seen himself as a warrior. Maybe he knew his limits. Maybe he knew he couldn’t fight back, and that obedience was the only weapon he had left.

Kisha’s gaze sharpened as she chased away the thought before it could take root. She didn’t want to soften, not yet. Compassion was dangerous.

Because if she let herself see him as someone worth saving... as someone ’redeemable’... then what about the ones who died because he followed orders? What about those who were tortured, lost, or discarded, all to keep his conscience clean and his family safe?

Didn’t their suffering matter too?

"I can, but only if you cooperate. I need to know everything," Kisha said firmly, pushing aside the tangle of conflicting thoughts threatening to cloud her judgment.

The Commander General broke down again, sobbing quietly for several minutes before he finally collected himself. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse but steady.

"I was assigned to protect the President. The other Generals under my command were ordered to rescue and secure high-ranking government officials, which they did. We regrouped at the Capital’s military base. At first... everything seemed normal. The President acted like a true leader, not corrupt, not power-hungry. He mobilized every military personnel we had to launch emergency rescue missions and save as many civilians as possible.

"He even sent teams to City D to rescue researchers and professors, hoping they could find a way to stop the spreading virus and find a cure. We thought we were doing something good, something right."

He paused, struggling to continue. His fists trembled slightly in his back, which was tied to the chair.

"But after we brought those researchers back... something changed. The President changed. He became distant, secretive. And then, one day, he summoned me and the other high-ranking officers to a lab buried beneath the base."

Kisha’s heart skipped a beat.

"Inside... we saw people, soldiers, maybe even some of the rescued civilians, being subjected to experiments. They were hooked to machines, monitored constantly. Some of them... they had started to manifest powers. Abilities."

He paused again to gather himself. But Kisha already felt the pit forming in her stomach.

She had suspected as much. Around the world, there would be the appearance of the first wave of awakened individuals. But to hear that the President had captured and used them as test subjects?

Her jaw clenched.

She had a very bad feeling about where this story was heading.

"The President said that although we hadn’t found a cure for the virus, we had instead uncovered a gift from God, that humanity was evolving. He claimed the outbreak was a mutation process, and that the zombies outside were simply failed mutations. The ones who survived and awakened their abilities? They were the successful ones, the future of mankind."

The Commander General’s voice was heavy with bitterness.

"He believed we were on the cusp of becoming a superior species. So instead of searching for a cure, he shifted focus. He wanted to study those with awakened abilities... and then forcefully trigger that same awakening in everyone at the base. His goal was to create an army of superhumans."

Kisha’s blood ran cold.

Her face drained of color as the words echoed in her mind. This was the same horrifying theory her scientist friend had uncovered in her previous life. But to hear that the President was not only aware of it, but actively planning to weaponize it?

It confirmed her worst fears.