[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 596 - Encounter with the Umbrella Special Operations Unit

Leon stood between the rows of cold metal containers.

He pressed his palm flat against the bulletproof glass of one of the incubation units.

Through that thin layer of white frost, he could feel it, the faint, rhythmic pulse of the flesh-mass inside.

The aftershock of a heartbeat.

This was Umbrella's proudest masterpiece.

The Lickers.

Blind. Every last one of them. But with hearing and motor reflexes that put any natural predator to shame.

Something invisible began seeping out from the depths of Leon's mind, a wavelength without a name. The forced-takeover signal, forged through the fusion of the Solar Stairway and the T-Virus, radiating outward from him as its Mutant host-brain.

It passed through the metal shells like they weren't there. Drove itself straight into those exposed, furrowed brains.

The Lickers had been restless in their sleep, agitated by the heat signatures bleeding in from outside. The instant the signal touched them, their bodies locked up rigid.

Then the crimson muscle tissue began to contract. Slow. Steady. Rhythmic.

Like prostrating before a god.

They were attack dogs in cages now. One thought from Leon, and they'd tear this entire underground structure to pieces.

He gave a satisfied clap of his hands.

These weren't the one or two pitiful specimens that stumbled across a movie screen. There were over a hundred of them here, vicious in a fight and almost trivially easy to control. A single Licker clocked in at roughly one-fourteenth of a T-101 Tyrant.

Ada noticed the shift. She didn't ask about it. She just lowered her muzzle slightly.

"Planning to let your pets out for some fresh air?"

A thread of mockery in her voice.

Leon pulled his hand away from the glass.

"Not yet."

He looked down the rows of metal formations.

"The Red Queen's power supply is still live." He paused. "If we release them now, that damned AI won't hesitate. It'll flood this floor, drop a high-voltage grid, or find some other way to scrub the problem. I'm not letting the Red Queen destroy my assets."

He turned and signaled Chris and the others forward.

"Move out. Through this canteen." A beat. "The air in here is making me sick."

Chris and Jill traded a glance, then fell in step behind him.

The team pushed through the forest of incubation units.

They were almost at the exit turn at the far end of Canteen B when Leon's ear twitched.

His hand snapped up. The whole team stopped dead.

From the far end of the corridor ahead, faint, irregular, unmistakable.

Tactical combat boots on hard floor. The sharp clinking of equipment shifting against gear.

"Someone's there."

Leon's voice dropped to almost nothing. He slipped behind a thick concrete pillar.

Chris and Jill reacted instantly, splitting left and right, backs to the wall, rifles already switched to full-auto.

Alice pressed herself tight behind Jill. She could hear her own heartbeat slamming against her ribs.

"Damn it." Chris breathed, a thin sheen of sweat forming on his forehead. "How the hell are there living people down here?"

The words weren't even cold.

At the corner, a full squad of armed figures materialized at the far end of the corridor.

All black tactical body armor. Night-vision goggles. Communication earpieces.

The man at the front was tall, broad-shouldered, with eyes like tempered steel.

James Slade.

Assault team leader. Codename: Black One.

He carried an MP5 Submachine Gun, the Tactical Flashlight on the barrel throwing a blinding column of white through the dark corridor.

Behind him: Rain, JD, Kaplan, and several unnamed elite operatives, all of them just as blindsided by the sudden close encounter.

"Halt!"

James's bellow filled the corridor.

His hand signal was textbook perfect. The operatives behind him instantly spread and found cover on both sides of the doorway.

Two sets of muzzles locked across barely 10 meters of open floor.

The standoff snapped into place like a bear trap. The air tasted like it was one loud breath away from turning the whole corridor into a sieve.

"This is the Umbrella Corporation Special Operations Unit!"

James's voice carried from behind cover, deep, forceful, with the kind of authority that didn't invite debate.

"Survivors ahead — weapons down, now. Hands behind your heads. On your knees!"

"This is a restricted zone belonging to Umbrella Corporation. You are in unauthorized intrusion!"

The word "Umbrella" hit Chris like a lit fuse.

His grip on the rifle went white-knuckled. Veins surfaced along the back of his hand from the force.

Everything. Every single thing these people had lost, it had all been taken by this company.

"Umbrella."

Chris laughed. Cold. Rough. Saturated with a killing intent that was barely contained.

"You know what I've wanted most in this life? To send every last one of you animals in that umbrella logo straight to hell."

"Put down our guns?"

"Get on your knees first. Confess every crime against humanity your company has ever committed. Then we'll talk."

The operatives on the other side clearly hadn't expected survivors with this kind of edge.

A savage light crossed Rain Ocampo's face. She locked her grip on her shotgun like she was trying to crush the handle.

"Captain." Her voice was flat. "These people are intruders. Obviously."

JD and Kaplan held the flanks, both of them strung tight.

Kaplan especially, hauling the heavy electronic decryption rig on his back, sweat already soaking through his collar. He was a technician. Not a fighter. This kind of close-range standoff was well outside his job description.

James Slade's brow furrowed.

His orders were simple: get in, shut down the Red Queen, investigate the incident. Command had called it a minor situation. Nobody had mentioned anything about an armed squad that looked sharper than his own.

And then.

His gaze moved past the cover and landed on the woman in the red dress standing in the middle of the group.

"Alice?"

He hesitated.

As a senior officer in the security division, he knew that face.

"Why are you with these people?" His tone shifted, clipped, demanding. "You're the head of security for this facility. Your job is to guard the gate. Get over here. Now. Explain what happened."

Alice blinked. Being called out like that caught her flat-footed. The disorientation from her fragmented memory hit her like a wave, she pressed her fingers against her temple, jaw tight.

"I don't know you."

Her voice came out hard. Under it, barely concealed: fear.

James read her in an instant.

Nerve agent aftereffects. Had to be.

"Alice, listen to me."

He tried to take one small step forward.

A round from Chris punched into the floor at his feet.

BANG!

"One more step." Chris ground the words out from behind his teeth, rifle stock locked against his shoulder, eyes absolutely flat. "And I blow your head off."

No humor in it. None at all.

The tension reached a breaking point.

Leon stepped out from behind the concrete pillar.

No weapon raised. Just standing there, completely at ease, and yet the pressure coming off him was like a wall.

"Captain James Slade."

His tone was conversational. The way you'd greet a neighbor over a fence.

James felt something drop in his chest.

The other side knew his name.

"Who are you?"

His grip tightened on the MP5.

Leon's mouth curved slightly.

"You know better than anyone what Umbrella sent you here to do." He let that sit for half a second. "Those orders — all that talk about system failures, internal maintenance — it was all a lie. They sent you here to die."

"Your team, in their eyes, is nothing more than living data. Test subjects for measuring how well their specimens perform in actual combat."

His gaze drifted, almost lazily, to the containers lined up behind the squad.

"Just like the things locked up in those containers behind you." A slight tilt of the head. "How should I put it... you're all expendable."

James's expression shifted. Just barely.

He'd had this feeling. That was the honest truth. Something about this mission had felt wrong from the start, almost no intelligence support, no briefing on what they'd actually find down here, just orders to push into a base that had already gone dark.

But a soldier's duty. The binding of his contract. No room to back down.

"Bullshit."

He forced himself steady.

"We are taking control of this facility." His voice hardened. "Last time, lay down your arms and surrender."

"Cooperate, and if you wandered in here by accident, I'll let you walk out alive."

"Otherwise, we will use force to eliminate you."

Rain had already run out of patience. As far as she was concerned, these were armed civilians who'd snuck in to loot the place while everything burned.

Jill worked the action on the Remington.

CLACK-CLACK!

"Try it." Her voice was ice. "Let's see if your helmets are hard enough."

The confrontation hung on the razor's edge.

Both sides waiting.

Waiting for the first shot.

➤ Next: Damn, What Is He Doing?