[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 599 - Unlucky Matt

Kaplan's fingers flew across the keyboard like a man possessed.

Sweat poured down his forehead in fat drops. He didn't have a free second to wipe it away.

A firewall like this was enough to break a tech guy's soul.

The Red Queen's security was completely, unreasonably insane.

"How much longer?"

Chris held his weapon with barely contained impatience.

"Almost! Stop rushing me!" Kaplan ground his teeth. "This damn cipher lock is doing a dynamic reshuffle — I have to input the sequence in under two seconds."

While Kaplan worked, Leon's gaze swept across the task force he'd just absorbed into his ranks.

His eyes settled on a man standing at the very back of the group.

The guy wore a slightly beat-up leather jacket. His hands were free now, but his wrists still carried fresh, ugly rope marks. He wasn't holding a weapon like the rest of the fully-armed unit. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, looking uncertain about what to do with himself.

Not one of Umbrella's mercenaries.

Leon's eyes narrowed. He placed the face immediately.

Matt Addison.

The survivor who escaped The Hive alongside Alice in the first film.

He'd shown up posing as a cop, been flagged as a suspect by James and the rest of the assault team, cuffed, and dragged underground right along with them.

Then, just minutes ago, when Leon unleashed the Leeches to convert the task force, this guy had been standing in the middle of the crowd, wrong place, wrong time. He'd caught the full effect along with everyone else.

Converted into a Mutant Node under Leon's absolute control. Purely by accident.

Honestly, a little funny.

Leon crossed the room in long strides and stopped directly in front of Matt.

The moment Matt saw him coming, his back went ramrod straight.

He still had his memories. He still had his emotions. But that absolute obedience, the kind burned into the bone, made resistance to the man standing in front of him a complete impossibility.

"Sir." Matt swallowed. His tone was impeccably deferential.

"You're not part of this mercenary unit." Leon stood with both hands tucked into his tactical pants pockets and looked him over. "They had you in cuffs just now."

"Yes, sir." Not a flicker of hesitation. Matt laid it out in full.

"My name is Matt Addison. I'm not a mercenary, and I have nothing to do with Umbrella Corporation."

He gestured at his cheap jacket.

"I'm an environmentalist. I snuck in here posing as a cop — I was trying to find my sister."

A flash of raw anxiety crossed his face.

"She's been working inside The Hive as an intern researcher. She went in to help me steal Umbrella's internal files on their illegal activities. I haven't been able to reach her for a week." He paused. "Then I ran into this assault team at the mansion up top. They grabbed me, figured I was an infiltrating spy."

In the original storyline, Matt's sister had long since turned into a Walker. Nothing left of her but teeth and hunger.

Still, even with his sister already gone, there was a silver lining.

Matt's original fate had been brutal.

After escaping The Hive, Umbrella would have seized him, strapped him to a table, and rebuilt him from the ground up, transforming him into the grotesquely powerful ultimate bioweapon from the second film. An evolved T-102. Nemesis. The Pursuer.

But now, he was one of Leon's Mutant subordinates.

A twist of bad luck had quietly saved him from Umbrella's dissection table.

"You want to find your sister." Leon patted Matt on the shoulder. Not too light. Not too heavy.

"Yes." Matt's jaw tightened. "Even if she's dead, I need to see the body."

"Good." Leon withdrew his hand. "Keep your head down, do what I say, and don't fall behind."

"I guarantee you'll see your sister."

The hope that ignited in Matt's eyes was immediate and absolute.

Every last trace of resistance dissolved. What replaced it wasn't just obedience. It was something closer to devotion.

CLUNK!

A deep, muffled thud of releasing metal pressure rolled through the hall.

Kaplan yanked his hands off the keyboard and bent forward, gasping.

"Done! Sir!" he shouted.

The massive alloy door groaned, a sharp grinding scrape of metal, and began sliding open on both sides, slow and heavy.

The space beyond revealed itself.

A corridor. Long and wide, stretching ahead of them into the dark.

The walls weren't concrete. Both sides were fitted floor-to-ceiling with fully transparent reinforced glass. The cold fluorescent lights overhead struck the panels and refracted into blinding halos across the floor.

The entire passageway was spotless.

In an underground base littered with Walkers, blood, and charred bodies, a corridor this clean was almost wrong. The kind of clean that had nothing to do with hygiene and everything to do with danger.

The task force members didn't notice. Their heads were full of tactical doctrine and nothing else.

James stepped forward, MP5 Submachine Gun already raised, and slid back into the role of commanding officer like it was muscle memory.

"Corridor is open!" He turned to Leon and called out. "Sir, requesting permission to advance and breach the main control room ahead. We'll clear the interior of threats."

He snapped a crisp, textbook advance signal.

Rain and JD fell in instantly. Three-man tactical formation. Ready to step into the glass corridor.

The exact moment James's boot was about to touch the corridor floor —

Leon's right leg came up and drove a brutal kick straight into the back of James's calf.

Full force. James's balance evaporated. He stumbled forward, lurched, and hit the mesh floor hard just outside the alloy door.

Rain and JD flinched to a dead stop behind him.

"Sir?" James pushed himself off the ground and looked back at Leon, his face all confusion.

He'd done everything right. Followed orders. Moved to scout ahead. He couldn't figure out what he'd done to earn a boot to the leg.

➤ Next: Brute-Force Through the Laser Corridor