FADE IN: EXT. WEST POINT CEMETERY/RUNNING PATH — DAWN Gray light. The Hudson Valley in November. Frost on the grass between headstones. CADET THOMAS REED (20) runs the perimeter path in formation with forty other cadets. He is lean, dark haired, close cropped. He moves with the economy of someone who has been told how to walk since he was eighteen. His posture is precise even at a dead sprint. The path bends along the edge of the West Point Cemetery. White headstones in rows so perfect they look computed. Names, ranks, units, dates of death. The stones go back to 1802. Thomas runs past them. He does not look. The cadets breathe in unison. Vapor clouds from forty mouths in the cold air. Their boots hit the frozen path in a single rhythm. The Hudson River slides past below, wide and dark and indifferent to all of it. Thomas reaches the turnaround point. He checks his watch. Not because he needs to. Because measuring is what he knows. The cadets run back. The cemetery falls behind them. The granite buildings of West Point appear through the trees, massive and permanent, the color of old smoke. Thomas does not look back at the graves. He has never looked at the graves. They are scenery. They are landscape. They are not yet real. INT. EISENHOWER BARRACKS — THOMAS'S ROOM — MORNING Two bunks, two desks, two sets of identical furniture arranged with the geometric precision of a diagram. Uniforms