“‘Can’t’ will be the epitaph of humanity—unless we wake up in time.”
—Enclave Officers Field Manual, 2075
August 23, 2077
Project Lycanthrope – Site 3, Huron Mountains Region, Michigan
It was a warm late August afternoon under a partly overcast sky. Outside the facility, crews moved with quiet purpose, preparing for a new round of candidates scheduled to arrive before nightfall.
The site had been built over what was once a modest copper-silver exploratory mine, a short-lived operation from a century past. Its shafts now plunged deep into the Huron Mountains, repurposed into secure underground levels. The old administrative buildings and outlying sheds had been rebuilt into barracks, workshops, and a motor pool, just enough of a façade to make the place look like any other military post to hikers or distant satellites.
Major Elias Harrow stood atop the reinforced roof of the intake gantry, a steel-framed structure spanning the main vehicle bay where supply trucks backed in to unload. The wind stirred his short-cropped dark hair, now streaked with gray at the temples, and tugged at the sleeves of his fatigue coat. His face was angular, the kind of sharp-lined weathering earned by years outdoors, sun-creased around the eyes, a faint shadow of stubble along his jaw.
From this high perch, with safety rails along its edges and grated catwalks leading off to maintenance ladders, he watched the work below. Forklifts rolled across the gravel, crews shouted orders over the hum of generators, and the cool wind off the pines carried the smell of oil and cut timber.
He felt the weight of classified directives in his jacket pocket as he scanned the scene, gray eyes tracking each movement with practiced calm.
Months. That was all the time they had, if the briefings were right.
Harrow lingered a moment longer, expression unreadable, then turned and started down the narrow stairwell bolted to the gantry’s side, his boots echoing softly in the hum of the afternoon.
He made his way across the gravel toward the old mineshaft entrance on the far side of the base. Around this hour, many of the transformed personnel would be on their scheduled free time. They had already seen a few waves of newcomers come through and knew the routine well. Even so, Harrow made a habit of checking in before each arrival, not to teach them anything new but to reinforce expectations and keep their sharp edges in check. The fresh intakes were always called pups by the veterans, a nickname that had stuck over the cycles, and Harrow liked to make sure the rough camaraderie never crossed a line when those pups stepped off the convoy.
His thoughts wandered ahead of his steps, as they often did. He worried about what lay beyond the coming months, about the briefings that spoke in quiet, terrible certainty of total nuclear war. And he worried about the other side of that truth: what if they were wrong? What if all this secrecy and sacrifice were for nothing more than shadows on the horizon, nudged along by forces none of them could name?
The low concrete checkpoint came into view, a squat box with bulletproof glass windows and a faded U.S. Army stencil above the door. The guard inside had long since learned his face and his posture, but Harrow still produced his identification card without hesitation, pressing it to the reader before the young private even asked.
“Sir, you know you don’t have to—” the guard began.
Harrow cut him off with a quiet shake of his head.
“Familiarity invites complacency. Complacency invites breaches. No one here gets a free pass, not even me.”
His tone was calm but carried the weight of an order, a reminder that no face, his included, was exempt from protocol.
The reader chirped, green light flashing. Harrow nodded once in thanks and stepped through the reinforced door, descending into the cool shadow of the converted shaft.
Stepping inside, Harrow was met with a scene that bore little resemblance to the rough mine it had once been. The natural rock walls were long since hidden behind layers of reinforced concrete, painted a sterile white with color-coded stripes running along them—guides for navigating the labyrinth the facility had become. The old service shaft now housed a new elevator, a Vault-Tec design with their unmistakable gear-shaped platform. Every time Harrow passed it, the sight stirred that quiet, cold reminder of what the coming months might bring. Everyone stationed here knew its true purpose, though none spoke of it openly, and, like Harrow, they all hoped it would never be used for its intended evacuation.
He strode past the elevator, pushing the thought back into the corners of his mind, his boots echoing on the polished concrete. Personnel moved along the corridors in purposeful streams: technicians with clipboards, logistics officers hauling crates, and among them the easy, loping gaits of the transformed recruits. Human and Lycan worked side by side now, a strange new rhythm of life beating steadily under the mountain.
It had been an odd transition, he reflected as he walked, rounding one corner after another. He remembered the looks on some of the newer personnel when they had first been briefed; most had assumed the scope of the changes was just a smokescreen, some elaborate cover story in case anything leaked. Harrow had come in after the process had been stabilized, and for that he was quietly grateful. He had read the reports from the early days, the horror stories no one wanted to talk about. That weight was more than enough without adding those memories to his conscience.
Another turn, another corridor. Finally, he reached the entrance to the common room used by those already transformed. When empty, the space always felt strangely oversized: high ceiling, wide floor plan, reinforced beams, and broad doorframes, but the design was intentional. The Lycans moved differently now, broader through the shoulders, taller by a head or more than they had been before, and they needed the room to breathe.
Inside, the area was partly full. Several of them were gathered around the holotape console, its brushed steel casing still gleaming under the overhead lights. The audio was crisp, unmarred by static, yet the broadcast itself carried that familiar, nostalgic cadence: an announcer with that mid-twentieth-century rhythm in his voice, clipped and enthusiastic, painting every pitch in bright detail. Harrow caught the rhythm of it and realized it was a Tigers game, mid-inning against the Red Sox, if memory served. He had listened to that same broadcast live just weeks earlier.
A corner of his mouth twitched, suppressing a grin. Half the room favored Boston, and he knew exactly how this would end. Blows and bites would be exchanged before the final score, but it never went further than that. He had come to expect it, even respect it, just another way these soldiers, human and otherwise, made sense of what they had become.
Harrow had only needed to send in the MPs a couple of times to break up the nastier fights over sports, and even then, he had never held it against them. More often than not, it was just their version of bonding, rougher around the edges than most units.
As he stepped into the common room, he noticed—as always—that the human personnel had wisely kept to one side of the space. It was not policy, and it was not prejudice. It was simple common sense. Getting too close during a heated broadcast had already led to a few unfortunate incidents, accidental bites in the middle of “friendly” scuffles. Those incidents carried consequences no one could explain to a grieving family. You could not exactly tell them their loved one had not died in an accident or sudden illness but had instead been turned into a werewolf and sent off to another unit, a unit no one on the outside was ever meant to know about. They already had enough real losses to contend with.
Harrow pushed the thought aside, clearing his throat.
The effect was immediate. Ears pivoted, heads lifted from books and papers, and in moments the room snapped to attention, a dozen pairs of eyes fixed on him.
“At ease,” he said, letting the tension hang for a heartbeat before watching them settle back into more casual postures.
“As you all know, in a few hours the latest pups will be arriving.” His gaze swept the room. “We have done this before, but it is worth going over again how I expect you to treat them.”
They relaxed a little more, listening.
“As per standard procedure, I expect you to be on your best behavior while they are integrating into the unit. Most of them still think this is some Captain Commonwealth program.” His mouth curved into a wry grin. “So when you smile at them, try not to show your teeth too much.”
A ripple of low snickering moved through the group, followed by a familiar voice—McKinley, Harrow guessed by the drawl:
“Yeah, I think I made a couple of ’em shit their pants and pass out last time.”
The snickers turned to a burst of laughter. Harrow’s grin widened.
“Just be nice, at first,” he said, holding their attention with that calm authority. “Your job is to break them in, not break them in half.”
“Don’t worry, we always take care of the new pups. Don’t think we have broken any of them yet.” Another voice called out—Parr, by the sound of it.
“The roughhousing can come later,” Harrow shot back, his tone dry. “Right now, your idea of fun makes the hazing I went through as a private look tame.”
That earned another ripple of chuckles from the group.
“By the last communication I got,” he continued, glancing at his watch more out of habit than necessity, “they should arrive around twenty-one hundred. So, after evening chow.”
He straightened slightly, letting his gaze sweep over them. “Dismissed.”
The word carried that familiar mix of professionalism and ease, a signal that the brief moment of levity was over—for now.
The group drifted back to their leisure, the low murmur of conversation and the steady cadence of the baseball broadcast filling the space again as Harrow stepped out. The door latched behind him with a muted click, cutting off the warmth of the common room.
He turned down the corridor, heading deeper into the complex. It was about time for the next scheduled briefing, and the command section was several turns away. His boots echoed softly against the concrete floor as overhead strips cast clean white light along the color-coded lines on the walls.
At the interior checkpoint he produced his identification papers, sliding them into the scanner before leaning down toward the newly installed retinal reader. The device hummed quietly, then emitted a soft confirmation tone as the heavy security door unlocked.
Harrow stepped through, exchanging a brief, silent salute with the guard posted inside before continuing toward the heart of the facility.
Inside the command section, other high-ranking members of the facility were already gathered. When Harrow stepped through the doorway, heads turned only briefly. Among officers in these meetings, silent acknowledgment was the custom; formalities were unnecessary.
Among the familiar faces, only one belonged to a Lycan. Stark, his black pelt marked by a striking white blaze of fur over the left side of his face, sat near the far end of the table. He was one of the original successful cohorts, part of the first generation of transformed soldiers to survive the process.
Members of that original group now served in training and oversight roles, guiding new recruits through what they themselves had endured. Among the transformed, they were regarded as Elders, not because of age—most were still young by military standards—but because they carried the experience and scars of those early, uncertain days.
Harrow gave Stark the same subtle nod he offered the others, then moved to take his place at the table.
“Gentlemen.” Harrow offered the word simply as he took his seat.
His eyes moved briefly around the table, noting the presence of the Project Anubis liaison, a rare in-person appearance that usually meant the agenda would carry more weight than usual. He had timed his entrance well; only moments later the table’s recessed projectors hummed to life, and a holographic display bloomed above its surface.
The American seal appeared first, bold and familiar. Beside it, another symbol resolved into view: a stylized E wreathed by a ring of stars—the emblem of the Enclave, the shadowed organization every senior officer at this table had been initiated into before their posting here.
Across the shimmering display, other rooms appeared, mirroring their own. Harrow could make out other officers seated at similar tables, watching the same feed, waiting for the meeting to begin.
Then a man’s image sharpened on the central display: Dr. Iskander Vero. Harrow had seen him enough times to recognize him instantly—measured in his movements, deliberate in every gesture, his calm authority apparent even before he spoke. Vero had been there since the early days of Lycanthrope and its companion project, Shepherd. He carried the kind of gravity that only came from witnessing the program’s successes and failures firsthand.
“Gentlemen,” Vero began, his voice resonating through the chamber. “As you are all well aware, your facilities are scheduled to receive your first round of co-ed recruits either today or in the coming days. On paper, you have already received the necessary supplies and the updated training briefs on the revised standards of the program. Is that correct?”
The image was not perfectly clear, but Harrow did not need clarity to read the weight behind Vero’s words or the shadow of shared understanding in his expression. Harrow knew that look well. Vero had lived through the same long nights and hard decisions, carrying the same quiet burden of what this work truly meant.
“Yes…” came a voice from another facility, clipped and edged with irritation. “But do we really need females in the program? These units are meant to operate at peak efficiency, and with subjects undergoing a sort of second puberty after transformation, you’re inviting distractions we can’t afford in a combat environment.”
Not again, Harrow groaned inwardly. He did not even have to check the display to know the speaker—Major Hargrave. Older, seasoned, and still stuck in the mindset that Project Lycanthrope existed purely to field better soldiers, not to plant the seeds of survival. His arguments always wore the mask of practicality, but Harrow had heard enough of them to know the tone: to Hargrave, female recruits meant complications—fraternization, morale issues, and a lack of focus in the field.
Harrow opened his mouth, ready to cut him off, when a rough-edged voice beat him to it.
“With all due respect,” Stark began, the rasp in his voice carrying across the room, “we’ve been over this—over and over. This isn’t just about winning wars anymore. It’s about surviving what comes next. You know as well as I do that even if we miraculously de-escalate with the communists—which, the chances are, looking at the current reports, laughable—there are too many nuclear weapons in too many hands. Someone is going to throw the first stone eventually, and you have to wonder what unseen hand keeps nudging them toward it.”
For a moment Hargrave looked ready to explode, his jaw clenched and his shoulders tensed, but before he could fire back, Dr. Vero’s calm voice cut through.
“Mr. Stark is absolutely correct,” Vero said, his tone low and measured. “And given the rest of tonight’s agenda, any further protest on this point is tabled indefinitely. You will follow the updated directives and standards to the letter.”
The silence that followed was heavy. Harrow caught Hargrave glance sideways, likely toward his own Enclave liaison, who was no doubt giving him the kind of look that stopped arguments cold.
Harrow made a mental note to speak with Stark later. He agreed with him fully, but this was not the first time Stark had spoken out of turn, and Harrow knew the risks of letting passion override protocol—even when you were right.
The rest of the meeting unfolded much as Harrow had expected: routine status updates, line items on ongoing projects, and reports on the recently completed Long Lines communications network expansion—redundancies layered over redundancies, every circuit and relay designed to keep talking even if half the country went dark.
“All necessary for what comes after,” they had been told. No one in the room openly argued against it; they all understood the stakes. Yet programs like this had already strained the civilian supply chain to the breaking point, shortages rippling across the country in everything from spare parts to basic consumer goods. Even someone as attuned as Harrow—someone who could see the horizon they were heading toward—could not help but think of the classified charts he had seen: stockpiles overflowing in secret depots while the public queues grew longer. The scarcity was real only because it had been engineered.
But the Enclave was playing the long game, not geopolitics anymore—just survival.
Just survival, Harrow thought as the meeting droned on.
The so-called Resource Wars, as the world had branded them, had never truly been about scarcity. That had been a lie, propaganda for the masses. The blow of that revelation, when it had been quietly revealed to him years ago, had been softened only by one grim truth: everyone else had been dragged into it too.
How did things get so bad? The question slipped through his mind like an echo. Even among the most candid Enclave briefings, no one could say exactly where the tipping point had been. It was as if some unseen hand had twisted every attempt at calm into failure, turning each fragile chance at peace into another spark for chaos.
The only certainty was the conclusion they had reached behind closed doors:
“Even we can’t salvage this international shitshow.”
One official had said it just that bluntly the day the directive came down that long-term survival, not victory, was now the order of the day.
Harrow rubbed at his eyes, tired frustration pressing against his temples, until a sudden lull in the background voices pulled him sharply back to the moment.
“Major Harrow? Are you feeling all right?” Dr. Vero’s calm voice carried across the table.
Harrow blinked, refocusing, and caught Stark watching him from across the room, ears twitching just slightly, picking up the shift in tone. He realized then that his carefully neutral mask had slipped, if only for a second.
“Oh, I’m fine,” Harrow said quickly, smoothing his expression. “Just tired. I’ve made it a habit to go out on field exercises with those under my command.”
It was not a complete lie. He had been active in involving himself with the Lycanthrope recruits; he believed if he was to lead them through what came next, he owed it to them to understand firsthand what they faced.
There was a quiet pause before Dr. Vero’s projection gave a measured nod.
“Commendable,” he said. “And the rest of you—if you aren’t already—should follow his example.”
Harrow felt a faint chill of recognition. Vero probably saw straight through him but chose not to press.
“Moving on, then,” Vero’s voice carried on, shifting to the next item.
Harrow let out a silent breath of relief, settling back into his chair as the meeting continued. Within minutes, the final reports were wrapped up, and the session closed without further attention drawn to him.
Harrow waited until the other officers had filed out, leaving only Stark seated where he had been throughout the meeting.
“I’m going to have to write up a formal reprimand, you know,” Harrow said tiredly.
Stark shrugged, arms folded. “Figured. But someone needed to say it.”
“Believe me, I share your frustration with Hargrave,” Harrow replied. “I was about to speak up myself. But this whole thing is built on structure. We have to trust he’ll be reined in or finally see the bigger picture.”
Harrow’s gaze softened. “And I don’t want to give them any excuse to cycle you out somewhere else. We’ve built too much here together.”
Stark’s ears twitched before he nodded. “Yeah, can’t argue that.”
Silence lingered for a few moments before Stark spoke again, quieter this time. “It’s eating at you, isn’t it?”
Harrow gave him a tired smile. “Can’t get anything past you, can I?” He sighed heavily. “The weight of knowing we’re heading toward oblivion, and all we can do is prepare for what comes after.”
Stark’s brow furrowed slightly. “Weird thing, ain’t it? Heavy as hell, but it settles the nerves too. Knowing what’s coming, even if we don’t know when.”
Harrow stepped forward, placing a hand on Stark’s shoulder. “And that’s why you’re going to make one hell of a leader someday.” He patted the shoulder twice before straightening.
“Come on, let’s grab a meal. Need my second wind before we deal with all these new pups.”
A low chuckle rumbled from Stark as he stood. “What’s the count on how many are gonna bolt when they see my mug?”
“Too many,” Harrow replied, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as they left the room together.
They walked on, the echoes of their boots mingling with the low thrum of the base, two men carrying the same heavy truth, heading toward whatever came next.