[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 507 - The Meticulous Wesker

Wesker stood up.

His towering frame radiated pressure before he even took a step.

"You delivered a bottle to William."

"Now it's my turn."

He crossed the room until barely half a meter separated them.

"I'm curious. What did you put in it?"

"Neurotoxin? Some new type of nano-bomb?"

Ada didn't step back. Flinching in front of Wesker was the same as signing her own death warrant.

"It's just water, sir. I saw you working yourself to the bone and grabbed it on the way."

"On the way." Wesker's fingers tightened on the bottle. The plastic body caved inward with a faint crinkle.

"Ada Wong. Do you take me for a fool like William — the kind of man who only knows how to stare into a microscope?"

He raised the bottle to her face.

"Your tamper-ring technique is professional. Vertical downward pressure, forcing a re-seal through plastic ductility." He tilted his head, eyes cold and unhurried. "But to these eyes, that little trick is far too crude."

Ada's palms went damp.

She had been careless.

Wesker was meticulous. She herself hadn't noticed the flaw. He had.

"What's in the water?" Wesker pressed.

"Nothing."

"Is that so." Not a question. He twisted the cap open with one hand and thrust the bottle mouth directly to Ada's lips.

"Then take a sip."

Ada turned her head away.

"I'm not thirsty."

"Drink!" His voice cracked upward. His left hand seized her chin and wrenched her face back around.

This was Leon's bodily fluid.

Leon's homologous virus had a controlling effect on ordinary humans and bio-organic weapons. But what would happen if Ada drank it herself?

Candice had said the virus possessed an extremely strong assimilative property.

She couldn't afford to gamble on surviving it.

She fought back hard.

BANG!

Ada's foot found the edge of the desk. She used it to throw herself backward, wrenching free from Wesker's grip. She rolled across the carpet, came up smooth, and drew the Glock from her thigh holster in the same motion, muzzle aimed straight at Wesker's forehead.

Wesker hadn't moved from where he stood. Still holding the bottle. Hadn't even flinched.

"Go ahead." His tone was pure mockery. "Shoot. You already know how the Spencer Mansion's defense system works."

Ada gripped the pistol with both hands, arms steady as bedrock.

"What exactly are you after, Ada?"

Wesker set the bottle down on the desk without looking at it.

"Assassinating your superior just to dodge a mission. That's a desperate move. That's not like you."

"I told you. It's just an ordinary bottle of water." Ada didn't budge.

"That's not what matters." Wesker walked back behind his desk and sat down. "What matters is that your head has been somewhere else entirely, for weeks now."

"The Atlanta CDC mission. What did you conceal?"

Ada's pupils tightened by a fraction.

"Don't insult me with the same garbage report you handed the board."

Wesker interlaced his fingers and rested his chin on them.

"Informants reported an uncontrolled new variant at that location."

"You were gone 2 months. You came back and handed me a pile of useless scrap paper."

"There was nothing there but a pack of starving survivors and streets full of walkers," Ada said coldly.

"Survivors." Wesker smiled. "What kind of survivor could make you go soft? What kind of survivor leaves a top-tier agent like you this distracted?"

He tapped the edge of an encrypted file on the desktop.

"I pulled your communication logs."

"You cut your positioning system for 2 full weeks."

"Ada. Where did you go? Who are you protecting?"

"I'm not protecting anyone."

Wesker smiled again, quieter this time.

"Back at the Executive Training Center, I noticed something odd. I tried to pull that man's file." A pause. "His records were gone. Tell me, Ada — who has the access and the silence to erase something like that without leaving a trace?"

Wesker let the speculation unspool, unhurried.

Ada steadied herself.

The more rattled she looked, the more she'd give away.

Leon's prison guard records. His tax filings. She'd wiped all of it on the day she returned. Leon was a ghost now, invisible to every system that might find him.

Ada let out a cold laugh of her own. "You're suggesting I have a connection to that man?"

"You know I killed him with my own hands."

"Fine. I'm done wasting words." Wesker dismissed her defense without blinking and moved straight to the ultimatum. "2 days."

"Within 2 days, I want to see John's hard drive on this desk. If you don't deliver it, I'll take a team to Atlanta myself and find out firsthand what kind of magic those survivors are hiding."

That landed.

If Wesker actually led a strike team to Atlanta, if they found the prison — Leon's current strength was formidable, but against Umbrella's organized military assets and bio-organic weapons, it would be a massacre.

She lowered the gun slowly, clicked the safety on, and slid it back into the holster.

"Understood. 2 days. I'll deliver the hard drive."

She turned to leave.

"One more thing."

Wesker's voice stopped her at the door.

"I'm still very curious what exactly you put in this."

➤ Next: Shooting Yourself in the Foot