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LOCATION: ARIA’S BEACHFRONT HOUSE
CITY: VIRGINIA BEACH, VA
DATE: NOVEMBER 26, 2025 | TIME: 5:00 AM
Graham Thorne grew up just outside Birmingham, Alabama, in the suburb of Hoover—a town where high school football wasn’t just a pastime, it was a legacy. As captain and quarterback of the Hoover High School team, he stood out early for his athleticism, grit, and natural leadership.
By his senior year, while most of his teammates were entertaining offers from Division I football programs, Graham’s path was already set. It was 2005, and he couldn’t ignore what was happening in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the broader war on terror. College could wait. He wanted in.
Midway through that year, he took the ASVAB and scored near the top percentile. His GPA wasn’t perfect, but a 3.8—combined with his athletic and cognitive performance—put him in elite company. The Navy came calling immediately.
He joined the Delayed Entry Program and began training with local recruiters on weekends, fitting in push-ups and swimming drills between football practice and Friday night lights. Where others saw sacrifice, he saw clarity. The structure, the discipline, the purpose—it fit him. And he never looked back.
After graduation, he shipped off to Boot Camp in Illinois, and was placed in the SEAL Challenge Program, given both his stated interest, and his athletic prowess. Then, there was Naval Special Warfare Prep School for a few months, and eventually he was sent to Coronado—the Naval Amphibious Base in the San Diego area—for Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training.
This started with a physical conditioning gauntlet, an extremely harsh training regimen that included the infamous Hell Week, during which they got almost no sleep and had to perform feats of endurance, resilience, and sheer willpower that would’ve broken most men within hours. The attrition rate during this phase was over 75%.
But Graham endured—limping, bleeding, hallucinating from exhaustion. He kept moving.
“The only easy day was yesterday!”
“The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in combat!”
And the last one that floated around in his mind as his muscles shook from the strain of holding a massive log up over his head with the others in his boat crew, standing on the beach in the rain or sunshine, was: “Get comfortable being uncomfortable.”
The instructors barked those words like gospel. Graham let them carve themselves into his bones. He wasn’t the fastest. He wasn’t the strongest. But he refused to be broken.
He swallowed the pain, bit by bit. And when the sun rose at the end of Hell Week, he was still standing.
Graham thrived on all of it. He graduated near the top of his class, and went on to earn his Trident and become a Navy SEAL.
He was assigned to SEAL Team Two based out of Virginia Beach and completed two deployments across Europe and the Arctic. Then came the invitation to join Green Team—a grueling six-month pipeline that led to his selection for DEVGRU.
DEVGRU—Naval Special Warfare Development Group—better known to the world as SEAL Team Six.
Graham served multiple tours with SEAL Team Six, participating in some of the most classified and high-stakes operations of the modern era. From hostage rescues to precision strikes, he built a reputation for calm under pressure and near-flawless execution. But after years of intensity, and with an old injury starting to flare up, he began considering a transition into a training role—until Elliot Voss offered him something far more ambitious.
And so, with that bit of exposition out of the way, dear reader, we return to the present.
Graham woke next to Aria. It was 5:00 AM.
Her small beach house always smelled faintly of salt and driftwood. The constant ebb and flow of the surf calmed him. Brought back memories—some good, some harrowing.
He stretched and glanced over at her. She was still asleep, back turned, the curve of her hips framed by the thin strap of the thong she’d worn to bed. With a smirk, he gave her a light smack on the back side—just enough to make a sound, not enough to wake her. Or hurt her.
Pulling on a hoodie and some joggers, he stepped onto the porch, where the breeze off the Atlantic greeted him with brisk November sharpness. As he moved through his routine—jumping jacks, pushups, dive bombers, crunches—he ran over the day’s agenda in his mind.
He had an appointment with Colonel William “Buck” Raines—retired, technically, but still a man whose phone call could get the right doors unlocked. Graham hadn’t seen him since his DEVGRU days, but if there was anyone who could provide a list of names worth trusting with humanity’s future, it was Buck.
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As Graham finished up his morning routine, he stepped back into the house to the unmistakable, delicious smell of fresh coffee.
“Figured you’d want a little pick-me-up before we head out to meet Buck. It’s been a while,” Aria called from the kitchen.
Grim smiled. “Yeah, it has. But men like him never change.”
Aria slid a mug across the island. “Men like you never change. You’re exactly like he is, Grim.”
He raised an eyebrow. “What are you talking about? I’ve only ever been an operator. I never sat at a damn desk.”
They laughed in that particular way military operators do about those who finish their careers “riding desks” instead of going out in a blaze of glory. It was only a joke, of course—everyone knew that the higher up you climbed in the chain of command, the more lives you held in your hands. True operators might scoff at the idea, but most still respected the officers who’d earned their stripes. Buck Raines was one of the good ones.
Graham had decided to bring Aria along for the meeting at a coffee shop near the beach. It never hurt to have some eye candy during a hard conversation—but more than that, Buck respected her. Having Aria there gave the meeting weight.
They got ready quickly and left at a quarter past six to meet Buck at six-thirty. Graham was glad to arrive first. Always better to be early. They picked a table off to the side and tipped the waitress in advance to hold off seating anyone around them for as long as possible.
Finally, Buck walked in, a huge smile on his face. Aria hugged him first, then Graham wrapped him in a bear hug that ended with a solid clap on the back. They ordered coffee, scrambled eggs, and toast, and the waitress left them alone, sensing the seriousness of the sit-down.
Once the food arrived, Graham started in.
“Colonel, it’s great to see you. Looks like you haven’t been skipping morning PT. Often…”
“First of all, it’s Buck. We’re all retired here—no need for titles among friends. Secondly, what the hell do you want? What happened to the Grim I know and love? You’d usually kick things off by telling me I still look like a walrus with a thyroid issue.”
Aria nearly spat out her coffee. She playfully punched Graham in the shoulder. “Why so mean? Weren’t you taught to respect your elders?”
They all laughed. Buck pointed a thumb at her. “See? She gets it.”
After a few minutes of small talk, Graham shifted gears.
“Listen, it’s true. This isn’t just a social call—though it’s damn good to see you. You know I worked with Elliot Voss for a long time, right?”
Buck nodded. “My condolences, by the way.”
“Thanks. He was a good man. Actually, that’s as good a place to start as any. What I’m about to tell you—well, it may not be classified by the government, but if they had it, it’d be buried deeper than the black ops budget.”
He let that hang for a beat before continuing, noticing Buck’s eyebrow raise in tentative curiosity.
“Voss spent decades working on two compounds. One completely eliminates disease and corrects negative genetic mutations. The other reverses aging—every bit of it. Shit, it’d even help you.” He pointed at Buck’s stomach, which—while not huge—wasn’t exactly flat anymore.
Aria smacked his arm again. Buck held up his hands in mock surrender.
“Okay, so it’s magical, got it. But why tell me? You come all this way just to tighten my waistline?”
Graham’s tone went flat. “No, Buck. You don’t get it yet. When you take these, you’ll be in perfect health. The aging reversal? You could live for hundreds of years. Maybe more.”
Buck had been raising his coffee, but paused, setting the mug down and staring hard at them.
“You two have taken it, haven’t you? Is it real?”
Aria nodded. “We have. And I can tell you—it’s one hundred percent legit.”
Seeing he had Buck’s full attention, Graham pressed on.
“Picture it: a core of SEALs, all in peak condition, with strength and endurance that only increases over time. Battle-ready whenever they’re needed. No aging. No downtime. No wear and tear.”
Buck stared out the window for a moment, the morning haze still clinging to the dunes.
“Well… now I see why you made the trip. This gone through the FDA process?”
Graham smirked. “That’s where it gets tricky. We called it a supplement—so no FDA approval needed. But we can’t advertise it. Imagine the power hungry fuckers who’d bury it in red tape and legal battles, and then ultimately just hoard it all for themselves.”
He let that hand for a second.
“No, I need a few units I can trust. We can go two ways—honest, or military. You remember how many experimental vaccines we took without even blinking.”
Buck let out a dry chuckle, still thinking.
“I brought one dose with me,” Graham added. He pulled a small vial from his jacket and set it on the table. “Take this, and you’ll spend a day on the shitter. That’s the worst of it. After that, your system’s clean. Every toxin, every parasite—gone.”
Aria chimed in. “Then a week later, you take the second serum and start the reversal. You might want to dye your hair and say you’re on Ozempic or something—people tend to notice when your hair darkens and you start shedding fat.”
Buck was quiet. Thinking.
Finally, he reached across the table, uncapped the vial, and downed it in one motion. No hesitation. No dramatic pause. Just a man making a decision.
He was surprised by the taste—virtually none at all. Like water.
Aria and Graham just stared at him.
“What?” he said. “Isn’t that what you wanted? My life insurance is up to date.”
They all laughed.
Graham leaned in. “Okay, you’re in for a rough night. Don’t stray too far from the head. We’ll have a courier set up a drop for the second serum in a week. When you’re convinced, I’ll be back. You give me a list of names you trust with the future—and I’ll bring them into the program. Sound good to you?”
Buck nodded, already pouring himself another coffee. “Yeah. That sounds just fine.”
Then he added, “Hey—can I get a dose for my wife? I don’t even want to think about the argument we’ll have if she finds out I did this without her.”
Graham cracked a smile. “You got it. Her dose will be delivered tomorrow.”
Then he spent the next twenty minutes driving home the same message, again and again: absolute confidentiality.
William “Buck” Raines had no way of knowing it at the time, but he had just become the first link in what would one day be known as the Peacekeeper Force—the elite sworn to defend Earth from all enemies, whether born of this world… or beyond.