[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 600 - Brute-Force Through the Laser Corridor

"Are you out of your mind?" Leon walked straight to the center of the gate and didn't bother softening it.

"With that half-assed situational awareness, you call yourself a special forces commander? You want to march my freshly absorbed elites in there and turn them into lunch meat?"

Chris and Jill crowded up behind him, leaning forward to peer down the corridor.

"What's wrong with the hallway?" Jill had her shotgun up, but she couldn't spot any obvious firing positions or defensive personnel.

Leon let out a cold snort.

He knew exactly what was waiting in that godforsaken corridor.

In the original story, James had led Kaplan and another operator straight in like they were taking a Sunday stroll. Both doors sealed shut the instant they crossed the threshold. High-energy cutting lasers fired from the glass walls on either side. That grid — extreme heat, terrifying cutting force — had sliced those elite soldiers into chunks no bigger than a fingernail. Flesh and bone reduced to minced meat on a chopping block.

These people were his assets now. His. There was no way in hell he was throwing them away.

"Look at the glass panels. Both sides." Leon pointed at the transparent walls.

James swallowed.

He stepped back beside Leon and studied the faint metallic seams barely visible along the inner surface of the panels.

Sure enough. An extremely complex circuit structure ran behind that glass.

"So how do we get through?" Chris asked. "This is the only route to the Red Queen's mainframe. If we don't go in, we can't get the motherboard."

Ada leaned against the wall, idly tossing her Glock and catching it.

"We could always let the former special forces commander walk point," she said. "Trigger every trap himself, then we stroll through after." A suggestion perfectly in keeping with her character, vicious and delivered without blinking.

James felt cold sweat crawl down his spine.

He was under Leon's thumb right now. If Leon actually gave that order, he'd charge in and die without hesitation.

Leon waved a hand.

"No need to make it complicated."

He turned and looked over James, Rain, Chris, and the rest of the fully armed group.

"For a flashy trap corridor like this, we use the most American solution available."

He pointed at the tactical grenade rig on James's waist.

"Every high-explosive fragmentation grenade on your person. Hand them over. Now."

The operators froze for half a second. Then they got it.

No hesitation. Hands went straight to belts and packs.

James produced three. Rain pulled out two. Chris dug out his last two.

7 military-grade grenades, pooled together.

"Throw them all in."

"Aim for the glass walls. Both sides."

James took the order without a word. He pulled the pin, gripped the spoon, muscles going tight.

The others got into their throwing stances.

"Throw!" Leon's voice came out low and hard.

Several big men released at once. Seven iron lumps arced through the air and slid or bounced their way deep into the glass corridor along the smooth floor.

The crisp CLANG of metal on tile rang through the hallway.

"Cover!" Chris bellowed, already diving behind a load-bearing column.

Everyone dropped and slapped their hands over their ears.

Two seconds.

Then the corridor detonated.

BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM —

Chain explosions thundered through the narrow, fully sealed passage. The shockwave ripped through the floor tiles underfoot. Fire flooded the entire glass channel in an instant. Concussive force mixed with shattered steel balls and fragmentation tore into the reinforced panels on both sides.

That bulletproof glass might have stopped a few submachine gun rounds. Against 7 military grenades going off at point-blank range, it shattered like paper.

When the last echo died, thick smoke rolled through everything.

Leon stepped out from cover and walked straight to the doorway.

The others rose behind him, craning to look inside.

The high-tech corridor, immaculate, sterile, cutting-edge minutes ago, was now a smoking ruin. The reinforced glass on both sides blown to fragments. The infrared sensors, high-energy laser emitters, and circuit wiring hidden inside the walls shredded apart by the fragmentation. Electrical sparks popped and crackled through the blackened metal wreckage.

Forget the laser grid. This place didn't have enough juice left to power a flashlight.

Didn't matter how impressive the Red Queen's processing logic was. Every single piece of her offensive hardware had just been physically erased. She was a general with no army.

James stared at the wreckage and felt the cold sweat soak through his shirt.

If he'd actually led his men in there, they'd all be dead.

Brute force physical solution. It worked.

Leon stepped into the corridor, boots crunching across the carpet of shattered glass, not slowing down for a second.

"Let's move." He didn't turn his head. "Traps are cleared. Time to collect our prize."

The team fell in behind him.

They crossed through the debris and smoke.

Leon stopped at the far end.

The final door to the Red Queen's main control room stood in front of him. The electronic lock had taken a localized short circuit from the chain explosions. Dead. The screen was black.

He didn't wait for Kaplan to come hook up equipment.

He raised his right leg and drove it into the dead center of the door.

➤ Next: The Consequences of Cutting the Power