[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 312 - Finding Milton — Words Unspoken
"One more thing." Leon's tone dropped to ice.
"That tank."
"I don't care how you do it. Piss in the gas tank. Strip out the engine parts and keep them as souvenirs. I want it sitting there as a heap of scrap that can't move an inch."
"And his heavy machine gun ammo. Find a way to get it damp, or just dump it in the sewers."
"I want you to personally pull every tooth from that mad dog's mouth."
Leon leaned in close. In the darkness, his eyes caught the light like a wolf's.
"Get it done, and I promise you — not one civilian in Woodbury dies."
"They become my people."
"And you, Martinez, you become their savior. Redemption for everything you've done wrong. You might even earn a real place at my side."
"If you don't..." Leon let the pause sit, then grinned.
"Then rot in that town alongside The Governor."
Cold sweat had soaked Martinez through.
He stared at Leon. This man had handed him two roads. One led to life. The other led straight to hell.
No third option.
Go back, and be a hero who might die any day.
Or stay, and be a traitor who dies right now.
He swallowed hard and nodded.
"I... I'll do it."
Leon smiled, satisfied.
...
Martinez climbed back the way he'd come, hand over hand up the same rope.
When his feet hit the top of Woodbury's wall again, it felt like stepping back out of the living world and into hell.
The air reeked of despair and death.
Outside the walls, the Walkers' snarls never stopped. Never would.
He didn't go straight to The Governor. He had no way of knowing whether The Governor had noticed he was gone, and he couldn't risk finding out the wrong way.
So he slipped quietly down from the wall and moved through the pitch-black streets like a ghost.
He needed an ally.
Someone with weight, someone with a brain, and most importantly, someone who still had a conscience.
Names flashed through his mind. He dismissed them one by one.
Die-hard loyalists to The Governor, or men who'd already been scared gutless. Telling any of them the plan was the same as walking straight to The Governor and confessing.
Then one name rose above the rest.
Milton.
The bookworm. Glasses, mild-mannered, always hovering near The Governor as his resident intellectual.
The Governor trusted Milton because Milton was no threat — no fighting ability, no ambition. The Governor had even saved his life once. Milton was still trying to find a way to restore Walker memories, and in return he worked for the man. That was the whole arrangement.
The residents respected Milton for different reasons. In the early days of the outbreak, it was Milton who had organized them to reinforce the walls and set up a basic water supply. He'd kept people alive through sheer competence.
He was a genuine expert, accomplished across more fields than most people realized.
But what mattered most to Martinez was something he'd seen more than once. Whenever The Governor handed down a particularly cruel decision, something would flicker across Milton's face — reluctance, and the unmistakable look of a man at war with himself.
He had a conscience. Reality had just beaten it down until he felt he had no other choice.
It was going to be Milton.
Martinez made up his mind.
He found the building on the far end of town, a small two-story with a faint light showing in the window.
Milton's lab.
He took a breath and pushed open the unlocked door.
A dim oil lamp burned on the table. Milton sat behind it, the surface in front of him buried under books, blueprints, and strange experimental equipment. He was working a pair of tweezers through a Walker's arm, methodically peeling back the tissue, studying the muscle underneath.
The siege outside might as well not exist.
That was Milton. He focused on his own work and paid no attention to anything else.
The door creaked. Milton looked up and adjusted his glasses.
"Martinez? Weren't you helping The Governor select volunteers? Back so soon?"
His tone was completely flat. But Martinez caught the flicker in his eyes, a faint, carefully controlled disgust.
Martinez closed the door behind him and slid the bolt home.
"Milton. We're in serious trouble."