Geo Torbano enlisted young. Too young.
Not because he loved the flag.
Because he had nothing waiting for him at home.
He tested high. Real high.
Strong, calm under stress, didn’t freeze, didn’t brag, didn’t crack jokes.
The kind of quiet that instructors notice.
He was fast-tracked.
He passed selection on his first attempt.
Barely spoke. Never complained. Never quit.
Where others burned out, Geo just… kept moving.
Instructors wrote:
“Not exceptional in speed. Exceptional in endurance.”
“Does not panic. Does not posture.”
“Responds to orders immediately. Does not argue.”
He was not the best shooter.
He was not the strongest man.
He was the one who didn’t fall apart when everything went wrong.
That’s who they keep.
Geo spent most of his career in units that were never named in newspapers.
He worked:
Direct action
Counter-insurgency
Hostage recovery
Black site transport
“Advisory” roles that involved a lot more fighting than advising
Sometimes he wore patches.
Sometimes he didn’t.
Sometimes he was officially there.
Sometimes he wasn’t.
Geo became the man you sent when:
The plan was already bad
The intel was already wrong
And you needed someone who wouldn’t panic when it collapsed
He wasn’t flashy.
He didn’t chase kill counts.
He didn’t collect stories.
He finished things.
When a team got pinned, he moved.
When someone froze, he moved.
When extraction was late, he didn’t complain—he dug in.
Command trusted him because:
He didn’t argue
He didn’t grandstand
He didn’t leak
He didn’t break
Geo buried people.
Not ceremonially.
Not with speeches.
With hands.
He dragged bodies out of alleys.
Out of stairwells.
Out of half-burned rooms.
He closed eyes.
He zipped bags.
He carried weight that wasn’t in the ruck.
He watched:
Good men die because of bad intel
Good women die because of political hesitation
Kids die because war doesn’t care what anyone deserves
He learned early:
Medals are not given for what you survive.
They are given for what you endure quietly.
Geo has medals.
He doesn’t display them.
He received them the same way most real operators do:
In closed rooms
From men who didn’t know his first name
With language like “necessary” and “classified”
Some were for bravery.
Some were for leadership.
Some were for things no one ever asked about again.
He knows exactly what each one cost.
That’s why they stay in a box.
Geo didn’t retire because he was tired.
He retired because he was done being used.
Too many missions that made sense on paper.
Too many orders that sounded clean and ended messy.
Too many funerals with folded flags and empty explanations.
He walked away when:
His hands started shaking after missions
Not during—after
In the quiet
In the dark
That scared him more than gunfire ever did.
So he left.
On paper, he became:
A quiet man in Groveland
A contractor
A “veteran keeping to himself”
In reality, he never stopped training.
Never stopped prepping.
Never stopped watching.
He built his home like a fallback position.
He stocked it like a resupply point.
He lived like a man waiting for something.
He didn’t know what.
He just knew it was coming.
His son was the one thing the war didn’t touch.
Geo didn’t talk much, but he showed up.
Games. School. Rides. Repairs.
He didn’t raise him soft.
But he raised him safe.
And when the outbreak hit…
And his son was in RedHaven City…
That wasn’t a mission.
That was personal.
To civilians:
He’s intimidating. Quiet. Too serious.
To veterans:
He’s real.
They recognize:
The posture
The eyes
The way he stands off doors
The way he watches hands, not faces
They know he’s been there.
And they don’t ask.
When someone thanks him for his service, Geo just nods.
Because he knows:
Most of what he did was never supposed to be thanked.
It was just supposed to be done.
Geo is not a hero.
He is a survivor of professional violence.
He doesn’t romanticize it.
He doesn’t joke about it.
He doesn’t brag about it.
He carries it.
And now, in a dead world, that makes him dangerous in a very quiet way.