So I made a long ass chapter but realised it was like 12k words so split it up, here we go. Also Cals 13 now and I am going to ramping up the action now. Thank you all for reviews comments and support <3
Months later, we still get the spies, mysterious shadows and occassional poisionous drop offs, we managed to only catch a few, some are rogue Fireflies, some are rival small factions. But what's most disturbing are the ones that don't break, the ones who's faces are set in stone even when we try more persuasive tactics to get them talking.
Nothing works fucking works. Waterboarding, sensory deprivations, the drip technique, pulling out fingernails and teeth. One of our guys got bored and put an electric current through some guys balls, and nothing. Who ever is sending these people is scaring me, and the others. Though most we don't catch and thankfully no one has assaulted me or my own openly.
But as the snow started piling up and temperatures dropped, these spies and others have mostly vanished, too cold and the snowstorms can be a bitch, right now we are getting back from the drop-off.
Frost clung to the edges of the alley walls, and every exhale came out in a pale cloud that hung in the air before drifting away into the dark. My boots crunched on thin ice as we slipped back through the service entrance, the heavy steel door shutting behind us with a muted clang.
It had been a good run. No, better than good.We'd dropped off enough supplies to make FEDRA's quartermaster choke on his almost frozen coffee: crates of ammunition sealed tight in military-issue tins, stacks of medical kits still wrapped in plastic, flares, fuel, and rare mechanical parts that could probably keep a Humvee running another decade if they had the rest of the kit. The whole haul had been exchanged for a pile of ration cards thick enough to choke a drawer, plus a stack of fuel coupons and a couple of "favours" on paper those were worth more than all the rest combined.
The System had been just as generous.[Mission Complete: Strategic Supply Surge]Rewards: +1600 EXP, +2 Scavenger Rank Credits, +1 High-Grade Summon Token
It had pushed me clean into Level 26, and the little bar below my name was already more than halfway to 27. For a second, the thought crossed my mind to burn through the points right there, but I shoved it aside. Not tonight. Tonight was about the crew.
The moment we came through the main hall of the Alleyway House, the noise hit boots on wood, low voices, the smell of something cooking over a salvaged hotplate. It was warmer inside, the air heavy with sweat and that faint metal-and-oil tang that clung to every weapon rack.
People looked up when I walked in. No salutes, no shouting just nods here, a smile and wave there calling by names and asking how's it going.
Rusty was leaning against the wall with a mug of something steaming, giving me that crooked half-smile. Cole was cleaning a rifle in the corner. Kev was stripping his gear, piece by piece, laying it out on a tarp like an altar.
"Good haul," Rusty said as I passed.
"Best one yet," I replied, dropping my pack on the table. "And we're celebrating."
That got a few raised eyebrows. Celebrations weren't exactly our style. Still, no one argued when I said it just a few smirks, a few low chuckles. Even Cole's expression softened a fraction.
But this time, I wanted it different. I wanted the people who'd never seen this place to see it. So after dumping my gear, I found a scrap of paper, jotted down two names, and handed it to one of the younger runners.
"Get this to my parents," I told him. "Tell them… it's time they saw it."
They arrived an hour later, stamping the cold off their boots in the narrow front hall. My mother's eyes flicked over every face, every rifle, every set of body armour in the room. My father's jaw tightened, like he was trying to fit all the pieces together.
"I thought you said it was a… small crew," my father said quietly, glancing at me.
"It was before," I answered. "Now it's not, no one ever said I cant keep expanding can I? Mr and Mrs FEDRA officers." My grin practically about to fall off my face as I said it.
There were over a hundred people in rotation now, and tonight a good half of them were here—crowding into the hallways, perched on chairs, leaning in doorways. Faces they'd never seen before, all wearing that same guarded look my parents probably had once, before it turned into something harder.
I walked them through the rooms, introducing them to the ones that mattered most: Rusty, Kev, Marta, Donny, Cole, Alexandra, Noah. They each gave a nod or a few words of greeting. Some of them smiled, though the smiles didn't last long.
Somewhere between the introductions, Meredith showed up. She strolled in like she owned the place, Lia and her aunt and uncle trailing behind her. She had a crate tucked under one arm, and when she set it down on the table and popped the lid, the sharp smell of whatever she'd brewed inside hit like a punch.
"Brought something to loosen everyone up," she announced, already grinning. "Don't tell me this is just another night of polishing guns and glaring at each other."
It wasn't. Not tonight.
By the time the mugs were passed out and the first toast went up, the tension had shifted. My parents still looked like they were trying to figure out how I'd managed this, but they weren't interrupting. Meredith was moving through the crowd like a storm, greeting everyone by name. Lia had vanished into the kitchen area with Marta, probably guarding whatever food we had from being raided before it was served.
For once, the room wasn't all business. People were leaning back in chairs, laughing low, trading stories, some discrepancies there but people jsut assume you remember wrong or forgot.
And me? I sat with my back to the wall, watching it all.
It struck me then, just how far we'd come from those first weeks, when it had been me, a couple of crowbars, and the System whispering in my head. Now there were a hundred people who'd follow my word, and tonight, we were celebrating because we'd done something even FEDRA couldn't ignore.
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Some time before after Cal made all the introductions he slipped away to speak with Cole about patrol rotations, the hum of the Alleyway House seemed to grow louder in his absence.
Elena exhaled slowly, almost like she'd been holding her breath since they walked through the door. "Tomas…" she said under her breath, eyes scanning the wide space. "Do you see this? Really see it?"
Tomas didn't answer right away. He was watching the nearest supply table, where two young women in mismatched armour were stripping rifles with quick, sure movements. On the far wall, three more people were laying out stacks of sealed ration packs and carefully marking them with coloured chalk. The air felt dense with purpose.
"This isn't just a hideout," Tomas said finally, voice low. "It's a damn command post."
Elena's eyes tracked the movement around them: Kev giving quiet instructions to a pair of scavengers to bring in the food, Rusty crossing the room with an ammo crate on his shoulder like it weighed nothing and a plastic bag in his free hand.
Tasha leaning over a map with Alexandra, marking routes in deliberate red strokes. None of them looked at Cal's parents like they were outsiders, but they also didn't break their rhythm.
"They respect him," Elena murmured. "Not because they have to. Because they choose to." She frowned faintly. "Do you know how rare that is? Especially during these times?"
Tomas's jaw tightened. "Respect is one thing. This…" He gestured subtly toward a corner where two guards in full gear stood watching the entrances, rifles resting casually but with eyes alert. "…this is power. Real power. And it's in the hands of a twelve-year-old, our twelve-year old."
They fell silent for a moment as someone walked by carrying a steel case stenciled with faded military markings. Tomas couldn't tell if it held spare parts or explosives, and the fact that it could be either made his stomach twist.
Elena tried to focus on the mingling, the low murmur of voices and the occasional laugh, but her mind kept replaying the introductions: Rusty's easy nod, Cole's hard, assessing stare, Alexandra's calm handshake, Noah's polite but distant greeting. Each of them had been respectful and friendly.
"He built this," Elena said softly, almost to herself.
"Yeah," Tomas replied, eyes still scanning the room. "And I think it's bigger than even FEDRA realizes."
She gave a small laugh. "Oh, I know it is. They think he's got what, forty? Fifty? Try more than double that."
They both looked toward the far end of the room, where Cal had rejointed his people, leaning over the same map Tasha and Alexandra had been marking earlier. He wasn't barking orders, just listening, nodding, pointing to a few spots on the paper. And every person at that table was locked on him like nothing else in the world mattered.
Elena's chest tightened. Pride and worry wrestled in her, neither winning.
"I don't know if I should be proud," she admitted quietly, "or scared out of my mind."
Tomas's eyes stayed on their son. "Maybe both."
Elena and Tomas didn't just stand there long. Cal, always moving like the centre of a wheel in constant spin, drifted off to check on a crate someone had just dragged in, leaving his parents at the mercy of the people he'd introduced.
It started with Kev. He was halfway through cleaning a sidearm on a bench when Elena approached, still unsure how to bridge the gap.
"You're… Kev, right?" she asked.
He looked up, smiled faintly. "That's me. You're Cal's folks."
There was no mocking in his tone, no skepticism just matter-of-fact recognition. "He's talked about you. Says you're the reason he can think on his feet. That and being stubborn as hell."
Elena blinked. "He… really said that?"
Kev shrugged, eyes back on the pistol as his hands moved with casual precision. "Don't tell him I told you. Gotta keep the kid's ego in check." But there was warmth in his voice, and Tomas caught it.
A few steps away, Rusty caught Tomas watching and came over, wiping his hands on a rag. "You're his dad," Rusty said, no question in it. "Good grip when you shook my hand earlier. Guess that's where he gets it."
Tomas allowed himself a small smile. "You've known him long?" Rusty tilted his head. "Long enough to see him turn nothing into all this." He gestured around to the supply racks, the armed guards, the busy hum of a hundred people. "Kid's sharp. Knows when to push and when to wait. That's rare."
Elena felt her chest tighten again, but this time with something closer to pride than worry.
Marta and Donny were next, emerging from a side room with a stack of scavenged blankets. Marta grinned openly. "You should've seen your son last week. Negotiated a deal so smooth even FEDRA didn't realize he was cutting them short." Donny snorted at that, but there was admiration in his eyes. "He's got guts," he added simply.
They kept moving, drawn by the natural flow of the place. The Alleyway House wasn't just a hideout it was alive. Conversations overlapped in quiet bursts, the sound of tools clinking against metal mixed with the rustle of inventory being sorted. Somewhere in the back, someone laughed at a joke too low to hear. The smell of oiled steel, cooked beans, and damp brick made the air feel grounded, lived-in.
Cole intercepted them near the armoury racks. His presence was like a wall solid, steady, and a little intimidating.
"Officer Reyes," he said with a nod toward Tomas, then looked to Elena. "Ma'am."
"You're Cole," Elena said. She'd heard the name before, from Cal and in whispers from others.
"Cal keeps this place tight," Cole said plainly. "Most kids his age couldn't keep watch over a bucket, let alone a hundred people with guns and reasons to use them. But he's got my trust. That's not easy to earn."
Tomas felt that one sink in deep. Cole wasn't trying to flatter them, he was making a statement.
It wasn't just the fighters that impressed them. In the far corner, Alexandra and Noah were overseeing what looked like a repair crew working on scavenged solar panels. Alexandra spotted Elena looking and waved her over.
"Your son brought these in weeks ago," she explained, brushing dust from her gloves. "We're getting them working again. It's slow, but it means lights that don't give us away with a generator's noise." She gave a small smile. "He thinks ahead."
Noah added quietly, his eyes firmly at the work in front of him "He also listens. Doesn't pretend to know everything. That's why this works."
Every conversation chipped away at the image Elena and Tomas had held onto that Cal was still just their boy, playing at survival with scraps and friends.
Later Elena realised that Meredith's had arrived with that girl Lia and what she presumed were her folks aunt and uncle shifted the atmosphere again. She swept in like she owned the place, greeting people by name, delivering hugs and mock insults in equal measure.
When she spotted Elena and Tomas, she beamed.
"Finally!" she said. "I've been telling Cal to get you here for months." She handed Elena a paper-wrapped parcel. "Bread. Fresh-ish. Thought you'd appreciate something that isn't tinned."
As the food and drink started to circulate, the tone shifted toward celebration. Music crackled from a battered radio, voices rose, and the whole room seemed to breathe a little easier. Elena found herself pulled into a conversation with Marta about how they'd managed to get medical supplies past FEDRA patrols. Tomas ended up by the map table again, listening to Kev explain how they rotated patrol routes to avoid predictable patterns.
The more they saw, the more they understood: this wasn't just Cal's gang. It was a functioning machine with their son at the centre, not because he demanded it, but because he earned it.
Elena caught Tomas's eye across the room. His expression told her everything she needed to know: he was impressed and happy that their son has accomplished so much, she was too.
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Cal leaned against the far wall, half in shadow, watching his own celebration like an outsider. It wasn't that he didn't belong, if anything, this entire place existed because of him but he liked seeing it from a distance. The laughter, the trading of stories, the quiet handshakes between people who months ago had been strangers. It was the hum of something alive and self-sustaining.
His eyes swept the room, tracking clusters of conversation. His parents were talking with Cole, who was leaning forward slightly respectful but firm, explaining some detail about patrol routes. Meredith was in another knot of people, glass of wine in hand, already grinning at some joke. Lia was near the armoury door with Alexandra, smiling, but every now and then her gaze drifted somewhere else. Somewhere specific.
Cal frowned slightly, following it.
The door opened without ceremony.
Robert strolled in like he owned the place, scarf hanging loose around his neck, smirk already loaded. He didn't even knock just slipped through, taking in the scene with that trader's eyes, the kind that could inventory a room in five seconds."Well, well," he drawled, "look who's throwing a party without me."
Cal pushed off the wall, a faint smirk tugging at his mouth. "Didn't know I had to send you an invite. You charge extra for gatecrashing?"
"Only if the drinks are bad," Robert shot back, already making his way toward him. "But since Meredith's here, I'm guessing you're covered."
They met in the middle, the kind of handshake that was half mockery and half respect.
"Didn't expect you, thought that someone finally killed you after you tried scamming them," Cal said with a smirk
Robert raised an eyebrow. "First off, go fuck yourself, second of all. You little warlord have been moving more product than half the QZ's black market combined. You think I wouldn't notice? Besides" his eyes swept the room again, "I had to see if the stories about your fresh stock of alcohol were true, I volunteer as tribute to taste test if they aren't poisoned."
By the end of his sentence he had that small smile as if he was giving me a massive gesture, he cant get shafted if he can think I will let him have our alcohol that I can yet drink because I'm too young. Fucking adults, I am an adult at heart and mind god fucking damnit! GIVE ME THE WHISKEY
Their banter rolled easily jabs about who could haggle better, backhanded compliments about having more 'inches'. Robert upped the ante with his remark that Cal should lose go ahead and fuck a bloater because that's the only way he will get his dick wet.
From there It devolved quickly to pure degeneracy comparable to what can only be described as the golden age of shit talking on MW2 and Black Ops lobbies.
Sharp, dark out of taste but completely hilarious to the both of them and others similarly minded who also joined in on the friendly shit talking.
Across the room, Tomas and Elena watched the exchange. It was strange hearing their son trade dark and vile humour with a man twice his age like equals. Stranger still was how relaxed Cal looked doing it.
But their attention shifted when Meredith, already flushed from wine, caught sight of something they hadn't. She tilted her head, following an invisible line between Lia and Tasha.
Lia was leaning on the wall now, arms crossed, eyes fixed on the marksman rifle slung at Tasha's back or maybe at Tasha herself. The younger girl wasn't looking directly, but there was a stiffness to her stance, a readiness. And when Cal laughed at something Robert said, both pairs of eyes shifted toward him, quick and sharp before sliding away.
Meredith's grin turned wicked. She drifted toward Tomas and Elena, lowering her voice like she was about to share the best secret in the QZ.
"Your boy's got two shadows," she said, jerking her chin toward Lia and Tasha. "Both ready to claw each other's eyes out, and he hasn't got the faintest clue why."
Tomas blinked, beer in one hand and half stale jerky in other. "Wait, what?"
Elena smirked knowingly. "He's just like his father."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Tomas asked, genuinely confused with some indignation.
Meredith just laughed, swirling the wine in her glass. "Apple. Tree. You figure it out."
Elena didn't explain further. She didn't have to she was too busy watching her son, oblivious as ever, trading another sarcastic jab with Robert something about Robert getting pegg-. Nope, she didint want to hear the rest of it.
Meanwhile two girls on opposite sides of the room looked like they were preparing for a silent war neither of them would admit to.
She gave a small smile she rarely ever gives nowadays and relaxed more into the party, wondering just how long it would take before Cal finally caught on.
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The alleyway house swelled to a low, content hum as the night settled in. Someone had dragged two oil drums into the common room and set wire grates on top to make them into half-decent heaters; the metal ticked and pinged as it warmed. The smell of hot dust and cheap wine threaded with candle wax and something vaguely sweet Lia's aunt had managed to bake in a bent pan over coals. The old radio on the filing cabinet crackled, then caught a station just well enough to cough up a warbly melody that sounded like it had been recorded underwater.
Cal stood off to the side for a while, letting the room move around him. His parents had found seats.
Elena perched on a crate like she was still on duty, Tomas slouched beside her and finally, finally unwinding. Meredith hovered between conversations, topping off mugs and delivering bad jokes with a grin that only got wider with every pour. Robert had annexed a corner like it came with a deed, holding court with two runners and Rusty, who kept insisting a kettle would boil faster if it was watched "by the right kind of eyes."
People drifted in and out of little eddies: Kev swapping stories with Noah about near-misses in side tunnels; Alexandra and Cole quietly comparing notes on guard rotations; Donny and Marta arguing whether the tin of fruit slices was actually peaches or vibrant, peach-adjacent lies. Tasha leaned against a doorframe, rifle sling looped across her chest, absorbing the room with the same alert stillness she brought to patrols. Lia laughed with Meredith's "niece by force," then glanced toward Cal, then away again, then back. It was all small, human gravity, tugging people closer and letting them drift.
Cal made a slow lap checking, more than socializing. He asked Noah if the night watch needed another thermos. He told Kev to stop "taste-testing" rations "for quality control." He handed his dad a cup of the not-quite-tea Lia's aunt had coaxed out of a jar, then nudged his father's shoulder with a knuckle. Tomas glanced up, surprised, and Cal caught the flicker of pride that had been building all night. He didn't know what to do with it, so he moved on.
"Speech!" Robert called, far too loudly for someone who claimed to value stealth. "Little landlord owes his tenants a speech."
"Pass, and go fuck yourself" Cal said without slowing, which got a ripple of laughter and a dramatic gasp from Meredith.
"Language, also. Fine," she said, climbing, god help her, onto a chair. "I'll do it. To the kid who somehow frightens grown men by alphabetizing crates and who terrifies me by refusing to eat breakfast—"
"Get down," Elena warned, though there was no heat in it.
"—to a year that didn't kill us," Meredith continued, putting a hand to her heart and nearly sloshing wine on her boots, "and to doing it again, on purpose."
The room cheered because it needed to, because the sound let out air nobody realized they were holding. Cal rolled his eyes, but the corner of his mouth kicked up anyway. He took the spot Meredith vacated near his parents and stayed there, just long enough to feel the warmth off the drum heater seep into his sleeves.
The radio fizzed and snapped, then caught a countdown—ten seconds late and skipping numbers, but good enough to rally the room. Someone started their own: "Ten!" Voices joined, uneven but together. "Nine! Eight!" Cal glanced around as people grinned at nothing and everything, the way you do when you let hope borrow the room for a minute.
"Seven!"
Cole nodded to him across the crowd: a small, solid thing, like a promise.
"Six!"
Rusty raised his mug and mouthed, Don't break anything. Cal mouthed back, You first.
"Five!"
Lia found his eyes. She didn't smile, not quite, but she tipped her head like a secret. Tasha saw it happen, eyes narrowing before also looking at me but smiling instead.
"Four!"
Noah leaned over to Alexandra, murmured something about the west stairwell supports, and she replied without looking up from the ledger she'd started filling in even here, even now. Cal watched them for a heartbeat their competence a calm light in the edges of the room and filed away a dozen plans he wouldn't say out loud tonight.
"Three!"
Meredith wobbled back onto the floor, pointed two fingers at Cal, and mouthed, Eat. He scowled and accepted a wedge of bread from Lia's aunt anyway.
"Two!"
Tomas' hand came to rest on Elena's knee. She didn't look, just let it be there.
"One!"
"Happy New Year!"
The shout bounced off concrete and old brick, bled out into the alley and up into the dark Boston sky. Someone banged the side of a drum; someone else whistled with two fingers and a joy that came out almost feral. Cal didn't realize he'd been holding his breath until it left him in a soft laugh he wouldn't have admitted to. He didn't cheer. He didn't make a wish. He just stood and let the sound roll through him, a tide that washed away the last of the day's hard edges.
People hugged. Some because they meant it, some because it was what you did when the numbers flipped. Meredith landed an exaggerated kiss on Elena's cheek and got swatted for her trouble; Robert clinked his empty cup against Cal's that was regretably just water, and said, "To future invoices." Rusty announced the kettle had finally boiled, and the room cheered louder than the news deserved.
Cal drifted to the doorway. Cold crept under the jam and nipped at his ankles. Out in the alley, a few candles in jars dotted the ground where someone had tried to make the night look softer. He watched his breath pluming white and thought, absurdly, about all the times he'd imagined nights like this and then told himself he didn't need them.
Footsteps approached. He didn't turn. He knew them.
"You did good," Elena said.
"Don't let it go to your head," Tomas added, which was the same sentence in his language.
Cal shrugged, hands in his hoodie pouch. "It's not just me."
"Sure," Elena said, and there was something like relief in the word. "But it's not not you."
Someone had found a station that played a song with a beat, and the room tried to dance without admitting that's what it was doing. Lia tugged Alexandra onto the scuffed floor, and Alexandra protested in exactly the way people protest when they intend to do the thing anyway. Tasha stayed where she was and smiled once small, sharp, real when Donny nearly tripped over a crate and then bowed like he meant it.
Meredith appeared at Cal's shoulder with two mugs. She handed one to Elena, one to Tomas, and winked at Cal over their rims. "We're keeping him overnight," she said. "No take-backs."
Elena snorted. "You try dragging him anywhere he doesn't want to go."
"Fair point," Meredith said, and sauntered away to bully Rusty into handing over the "nice" cups for guests.
Robert sidled up next, eyes on the crowd. "You know," he said, tone light, "I've seen worse kingdoms."
"This isn't a kingdom," Cal said.
"Relax," Robert murmured. "Joke. Keep your crown in the drawer."
Cal let that one pass. The word didn't fit and never would, but something about the shape of the night about the way people leaned inward when he moved—felt like a weight he recognized now. Not a crown. A responsibility with teeth.
He went back inside before he could think too long about metaphors. Someone thrust a mug into his hand, and he took a sip without asking what it was. Warmth flooded his chest, oh my gods, yes finally. Fuck yeah, wine, as soon as he tried taking a second sip Meredith strolled up like she had a 6th sense told Cal he is too young, chugged the drink, gave back the mug and walked off.
Sigh
The radio sputtered; the room sang off-key. Tasha finally stepped away from the doorframe and joined the swirl, keeping to the edge but closer than before. Lia caught Cal's sleeve as he passed and didn't say anything, just squeezed once and let go.
The night settled into the bones of the place, less a moment than a mood, and for a short stretch of hours the warehouse's rough little sister of a safehouse became something like a home. People leaned. People laughed. People forgot, some already too drunk passed out hitting their faces on hard surfaces.
Cal stood in the middle of it, and for once, didn't plan the next ten steps. He marked faces instead. Counted breaths. Let the warmth of the oil drums soak into his gloves and the ridiculousness of the music pull his mouth into a real smile.
He didn't know what the next year would demand. He didn't know who would still be here the next time someone counted backwards from ten. But he knew this: he had brought them to another threshold, and they'd crossed it together.
"Happy New Year," he said, mostly to himself, and let the words belong to the room, right before he was swept into the dance floor from both sides by Lia and Tasha with Meredith practically pushing him from the back.
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The snow hadn't melted for weeks. Boston's QZ lay under a crust of ice and grey slush, the streets smelling faintly of rusted metal and burned wood from every barrel fire. The cold seeped into everything, clothing, stone, even the walls of the Alleyway House seemed to creak with it.
Cal's 13th birthday arrived with no fanfare on the 23rd February. He'd almost forgotten until Lia's aunt appeared at the side door with a small loaf of bread wrapped in cloth, steam still curling faintly from its cracked top.
"It's not much," she said softly, her eyes flicking past him to the hall where Kev was hammering a nail into a new coat rack. "But it's warm."
Cal took it, fingers numb from the air, and nodded once. "Thank you."
Cole appeared not long after, the big man leaning against the doorframe with a steaming mug of something that smelled faintly sweet. "Don't expect singing," he said. "But here." He passed the drink over without meeting Cal's eyes, as if the exchange were just another piece of gear being handed off before a patrol.
Cal didn't mind.
The day itself passed like any other. Scouts came and went, bringing in reports of abandoned shops and faint smoke trails outside the QZ walls. The guards rotated shifts. Somewhere upstairs, Alexandra was tallying the latest ration card exchanges with FEDRA.
But in the quieter moments walking the long hallway between storerooms, or looking over the logbooks in his cramped office corner Cal felt the weight of the date.
two years.
Two years since the System had appeared, an alien pulse in the middle of him bleeding out in middle of the street after cutting my leg badly in the warehouse. Back then, he'd been scavenging alone, dodging patrols, trying to keep his parents from realizing how often he went hungry.
Now…
He stepped into the main room, looking over the space.
A hundred people, give or take, called this operation theirs. His. Teams moved with discipline. Supply caches were marked on detailed maps. The name of his crew carried enough fear in the QZ's underworld that petty thieves crossed the street rather than risk eye contact with one of his runners. Even FEDRA traded with him on his terms.
And yet, with all the noise and motion, he couldn't shake the feeling that the floor under them all was shifting.
That evening, in his small office in Alleyway House's, he sat on his chair. The cold came in through the cracked window frame, and he wrapped his brown coat tighter.
Through the dark, he could hear muffled sounds, someone laughing down in the kitchen, boots on the wooden stairs, the scrape of metal as a rifle was cleaned.
His mind drifted to the rumours he'd been hearing: skirmishes between FEDRA and Fireflies, not just out west but here, in Boston. Patrols clashing in alleys. Rumoured assassinations. Supply lines being hit hard.
The System was mainly quiet for now with the occasional small mission and reward but the thought pressed at him: whatever this was building to, he was standing right in the middle of it.
He looked at the maps again in his head tunnels, routes outside the walls, supply caches farther than FEDRA's control reached.
Maybe… maybe it was time to think about leaving. Before one side or the other decided the "kid warlord" was a piece on their board they couldn't afford to leave in play.
Later that night.
The house was quiet in a way Cal rarely experienced anymore.
Not the kind of quiet that came from a room full of tired fighters asleep after a long day, or the muted clink of mugs in the Alleyway House when the late shift came off guard duty. This was a domestic quiet the old, careful peace of his parents' home in the QZ. The hum of a generator somewhere down the block was a soft, constant background note. Pipes ticked faintly in the walls as they cooled from the day's use. Even the street outside felt empty.
He lay in bed, staring up at the faint hairline crack that ran from one corner of the ceiling toward the hanging light fixture, the hello kitty poster still where it has been for years. The moonlight slipping through the curtains was enough to outline the familiar shapes in his childhood bedroom, the same desk that had been there for years, the same dent in the wall where he'd once knocked over a chair in frustration. It felt… strange. Like stepping back into a life he'd left behind, but without the same skin to fit into it.
Sleep didn't come. Not with the kind of mind he had now. He'd spent too long living on schedules, weighing the math of supplies, security, and manpower in his head until it became background noise. Tonight was no different. Every time his eyes closed, his thoughts drifted back to stock counts, guard rotations, new tunnel reinforcements, and trade schedules.
And then the boom came.
It wasn't loud enough to rattle the windows, but it was low and deep a rolling sound that traveled through the ground more than the air. It was distant, from far beyond the QZ walls, but his senses were tuned now to anything out of place. This was out of place.
Cal swung his legs out of bed, the cold floorboards biting at his bare feet. He crossed the room quickly, pushing the curtain aside to get a better view.
Outside, Boston's skyline was a jagged silhouette under a heavy, low cloud cover. The moonlight was pale and weak, catching only the edges of the tallest ruined buildings. No telltale flash of fire. No rising smoke. Just the black shape of the outer wall and, beyond it, the unknown.
He stood there a long time, scanning that darkness. His breath fogged faintly against the glass.
That boom meant something. Maybe FEDRA testing charges outside the perimeter. Maybe Fireflies setting traps or blowing through an obstacle. Or maybe a huge skirmish.
Since the revenge, his name carried weight in places he'd never set foot. Inside the QZ, people stepped carefully around him, like he was a loaded weapon that might go off if handled wrong. Outside, he had no illusions. The Fireflies were still watching him. FEDRA's higher-ups were still measuring his value. Even the smugglers and independents kept him in mind when they drew their maps and planned their runs.
And well the infected are infected, rarely we see them in the QZ or outside.
The boom made something settle in his chest not fear, but a recognition. A truth that had been creeping closer for months.
One day, this place will swallow me whole if I let it.
The QZ wasn't safety. It was a cage. And right now, the cage wanted him alive because he was useful. But usefulness could cut both ways. When his value outweighed the risk of keeping him around, someone would make a choice. FEDRA. Fireflies. Or someone else entirely. And in that moment, all the guards, tunnels, and weapons wouldn't matter.
He thought of the raids he'd planned, the trades he'd made, the faces of people who'd chosen to follow him. They weren't soldiers in uniforms. They weren't civilians under an official's thumb. They were his people because he'd built something that worked. Something that lasted. But it would last only so long as the balance held.
Another dull rumble rolled in from the distance, this one softer, like an echo of the first.
Cal leaned one hand on the wall beside the window, letting the curtain fall back into place. The room felt smaller now, the bed too soft.
He crossed back to it and sat on the edge for a moment, elbows resting on his knees, head bowed. No sound from the rest of the house, his parents were asleep, trusting the QZ walls to keep them safe.
He didn't trust them.
His thoughts drifted to maps he'd drawn in the Alleyway House, the routes through old subway lines and half-collapsed service tunnels that could lead out of Boston entirely. He imagined moving his people in small groups, trading across state lines, disappearing into places where neither FEDRA nor Fireflies could reach easily. It was a half-formed plan for now, too risky to attempt without preparation but it was no longer just a thought.
It was becoming a goal.
And with that goal came a promise: If I leave, I won't be coming back the same. I won't be anyone's pawn. And I won't die because someone decided my stockpiles were too good to pass up.
Cal lay back at last, pulling the blanket over himself. His eyes stayed open for a long time, tracing that crack in the ceiling again. Outside, the city held its silence.
But in his head, the distant boom was still echoing.