CHAPTER 48: ONE OF THEM

The safehouse was quieter than usual.

Zubair Hossaini sat at the far end of the room, sharpening his field knife with deliberate care. Sparks of steel slid along the whetstone, each stroke clean and slow. The silence wasn’t heavy—but it was tense. Static, like a storm was building behind the walls and no one knew if it was going to break.

Lachlan was already inside when Zubair arrived.

He hadn’t said much.

That was new.

The Country A man usually filled the space with some dumb joke or half-hearted complaint about the cold coffee or Elias’s smug tone. But tonight, he was sitting with his back against the windowsill, boot tapping against the tile. A chocolate bar sat untouched in his lap.

Zubair watched him, careful and still.

Something was off.

"Where’s Elias?" Alexei drawled, entering without knocking. He threw himself across the nearest chair, stretching out like a cat. "Let me guess. Too busy analyzing dirt samples and pollen?"

Lachlan didn’t even glance over.

The power had come back that afternoon, but it had been five days of silence before that. Five days of City H without electricity, working phones, or any digital access. People had panicked. Stores had been emptied. Water stopped running in some areas. Hospitals barely held together since their generators required gas, and gas stations required electricity to pump more gas.

The worst part was that it hadn’t been local.

Reports came in of blackouts in other regions. Other cities.

A full-scale system failure.

And no one could agree on why.

The door opened again, and Elias strode in with a tablet under one arm, sunglasses still perched in his hair like the light was too much for him. "Sorry. Took longer to stabilize the remote access node than I expected. Satellite sync is still buggy."

"Not surprised," Zubair said mildly, setting his blade aside. "Whole damn city barely held together."

"That’s because it wasn’t just the city," Elias replied, matter-of-fact. "You all heard the reports?"

"Some," Lachlan muttered.

"It was a Class X solar flare. Stronger than anything we’ve had in over fifty years. Struck hard, fast, and fried half the low-orbit relay systems. Ground-level transformers couldn’t handle the current. You get enough of those combined outages at once, you get a chain collapse. It’s not strange—it’s physics."

Zubair stared at him.

"So you’re saying it’s normal?"

"I’m saying it’s explainable," Elias replied. "The infrastructure was already brittle. This kind of event was bound to trigger a temporary system crash. But the satellites are being recalibrated, backups are syncing, and—"

"—and people were one day from rioting," Lachlan interrupted. His voice was quiet. Flat.

"Supermarkets were empty by hour six. Phones went dead by day two. We rely on those systems too much, and it doesn’t take much to tip the whole thing over."

Elias sighed. "Look, I know it’s unsettling. But it’s not some harbinger of doom."

Lachlan finally looked up. "No? Because my source said something like this would happen. Maybe not this exact thing, but a system fracture. A signal. And you’re telling me the sun just happened to pick this week to nuke the grid?"

Zubair didn’t say a word.

Neither did Alexei.

Elias opened his mouth, then shut it again.

"I trust her," Lachlan said quietly. "More than I trust your science."

Elias gave a half-shrug. "Do what you want. Just make sure you’re here tomorrow morning."

"For what?" Zubair asked, voice low.

"The vaccine," Elias said simply. "We’ve had final clearance from Command. It’s not a trial anymore. All KAS operatives are required to be injected."

Zubair straightened. "Required?"

"There’s no alternative," Elias said. "It’s been six months of live tests across five provinces. All results have come back positive. No adverse effects. Increased immune response. Faster recovery. Even reduced fatigue in some cases."

Alexei raised a brow. "What happens if we do not do what we are told to do?"

Elias didn’t blink. "Then you’re dishonorably discharged and sent back home on the next flight. No pension, no clearance, no career. The government’s done pussyfooting around. You take it, or you leave."

Lachlan let out a low laugh. It wasn’t amused. "Well, that’s not shady at all."

"Don’t be dramatic," Elias snapped. "You’re acting like this is some conspiracy. We’ve worked with pharmaceutical contracts for decades. This one’s better than most."

Zubair narrowed his eyes. "Where did the vaccine come from?"

"Country M designed the base," Elias replied. "But between the R3EAV3R vaccine from Country K and the modifications that we have made, we feel confident in the results. It’s now classified as R3AV3R-XN, Country N’s version of the vaccine meant to keep us all safe. It’s been improved, there is no question as to what it will do and its side effects. It’s been patented and distributed through authorized labs only."

"Improved how?" Lachlan asked.

"Doesn’t matter," Elias said. "It’s safe. It’s necessary. And the brass says it’s time."

Zubair studied Elias’s face.

Not lying.

But not entirely truthful either.

When the meeting ended, no one spoke on the way out.

Alexei tossed a mock-salute over his shoulder and mumbled something about liquor. Lachlan stayed seated long after the others had gone, chocolate bar still unopened.

Zubair lingered near the supply closet.

The power outage had shaken him too.

Not the darkness. Not the cold. He’d survived worse.

But the way people panicked—how fast the city frayed—that had told him everything.

Systems didn’t need to be destroyed to collapse.

They just needed to pause.

And in that pause, something slipped.

Something real.

He thought about what Lachlan said. About "her."

Zubair didn’t know who she was. But he’d seen the tension, the loyalty. Lachlan wasn’t the type to follow blindly.

So whoever she was... she’d earned it.

He opened the closet slowly. Started checking shelves. Wrote down the things they lacked. Replaced the expired iodine tablets. Set aside two knives to sharpen later.

He didn’t announce anything.

Didn’t look for permission.

Because it wasn’t about fear.

It was about listening.

About reading the signs that others refused to see.

And if what Lachlan said was true—if this was just the beginning—then Zubair Hossaini had no intention of being caught off-guard.

So he began.

Quietly.

Carefully.

If Lachlan trusted her that much that he was willing to go against one of his own teammates that he had been working with for years, then there was only one explanation. She was one of them, whether they liked the idea or not.