[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 625 - You'd Better See This for Yourself — Is This Real?

"What's going on?"

"Did you run into a massive Walker Horde?"

"Or are those prisoners refusing to let her go?"

The President's fist came down on the desk.

"If it's about supplies, promise them whatever they want."

"If that doesn't work, you have a gun. I trust your abilities, and I don't mind you taking extreme measures."

"No. It's not a Walker Horde. It's not the inmates either."

Smith wiped the sweat from his face.

He picked up the heavy communications terminal, swung the camera around, and aimed it straight at the barrier ahead, the absolute wall that had left even a million-strong Walker Horde with nothing to do but stare.

"Mr. President, you need to see this for yourself."

The video fed through to the screen in perfect clarity.

President Graham was sitting in his wide leather chair. He looked once.

And froze.

He removed his glasses from the bridge of his nose with excruciating slowness, pressed his fingers hard into his eyes, and put them back on.

His gaze locked onto that defensive line reaching almost to the clouds.

Those walls. The semi-automated defense systems packed along the parapets, radiating an aesthetic of pure, absolute violence. The phased-array radars throwing a blinding glare off the sunlight.

All of it real.

Not a mirage.

"What in the hell is this place?"

From the mouth of a man who had spent his entire career minding his language, an expletive. Rare didn't begin to cover it.

"This is the broken-down little prison on the outskirts of Atlanta you told me about?"

He pointed at the screen. His finger was trembling.

"This defense rating is a full two grades above the bunker I'm sitting in right now."

On the other end of the line, Smith let out a long, helpless breath.

"Yes, sir."

"These are the exact coordinates your intelligence gave us."

He pulled the camera back to his own face.

"Whoever leads this place has turned a correctional facility into a genuine Doomsday Fortress."

He said it plainly, without any attempt to soften it.

"Mr. President, speaking from years of special operations experience —"

"The defenses on that fortress have no solution."

"Not for a strike team our size. Not without a full battle group behind us."

Smith swallowed.

"With respect, sir."

"Our bunker, compared to this? It's a basement with a door that doesn't even lock right."

That one landed.

But the President had no interest in reprimanding Smith for overstepping. His mind was too busy drowning in question marks.

In this wasteland. Global infrastructure collapsed. Industrial supply chains shattered.

Who in God's name had done this.

Raised a structure like that, in this short a time, out in the scrubland outside Atlanta, from nothing.

How many top-tier engineers would that take? How much heavy machinery? How vast an expenditure of manpower and resources to pour into something this size?

He suddenly felt like he didn't recognize the world anymore.

He had to be dreaming. Stress from worrying about his daughter, that was all this was.

"Sir."

Smith's voice cut through it.

"What are your orders?"

Smith glanced back at the Armored Vehicles sitting behind him.

"If we just roll up and demand the girl back, I'm afraid their defense towers classify us as a hostile armed force and eliminate us on the spot."

He paused 2 seconds, then put the real question on the table.

"And, sir —"

"With your daughter inside a place like this, no Walker is ever going to touch a single hair on her head."

"Even warlords with heavy weapons can't crack something this solid."

"Do we actually still need to pull her out?"

"Wandering the wasteland with us would be far more dangerous."

The President went quiet for a long time. He leaned back in his chair, brow locked tight.

Smith wasn't wrong. The outside world had already gone to hell.

The soldiers at Fort Benning, the nearest base, were already off the leash. A few days ago they'd completely ignored his orders. Didn't even bother with an excuse.

He was President in name only.

The bunker had food stores. But no one could guarantee it wouldn't be cracked open from the inside by some mutation none of them saw coming.

Ashley, inside that fortress, she was in the safest place she could possibly be right now. That was just the truth.

But as a father. And as a politician. He had an urgent, burning need to know who was behind it.

The construction capacity alone was staggering. And the military-industrial depth underneath it, whoever built this hadn't done it on a whim.

If this force could be brought over to the federal government, rebuilding order wouldn't just be words anymore.

If they had other ambitions, they were an existential threat to whatever remained of legitimate governance. Something to be dealt with immediately.

"Don't force your way in. Whoever built a defensive installation of this scale during the apocalypse is not a simple figure."

The President's voice had gone flat and serious.

"Leave all weapons in the vehicles. Take 2 men."

"Check whether they're still taking people. A construction project this size, they need manpower. They won't turn away survivors."

"Go and negotiate."

Clear and direct.

"Keep a low profile. Don't give them your real identity."

"I don't care how you do it. You get a meeting with the highest authority in that fortress."

"I want to know exactly who we're dealing with."

The President laced his hands together and set them on the desk.

"If they still show basic respect for the government, work on bringing them in."

"If Ashley is genuinely doing well in there, I won't force you to extract her, but you confirm that her personal freedom is intact."

"Clear?"

Smith straightened and snapped a salute.

"Yes, sir."

The call ended.

Smith folded the bulky military terminal and stowed it back in the Armored Vehicle. He drew a slow breath, then turned to face the special forces soldiers standing behind him, weapons up, on full alert.

"Vehicles one and two, stay."

"All other vehicles hold in place, fire control systems fully down. No, pull back 10 miles. Don't let their scouts find you."

"Lieutenant John. You're with me."

Smith reached up, pulled the Tactical Vest off his chest, and tossed it into the cabin. Then he unbuckled the holster on his thigh and dropped that in too.

He knew exactly how it worked. Against a defensive network at that level, body armor and a sidearm made precisely zero difference.

One sweep from a machine cannon, nothing left but pulped meat.

He walked toward the Lieutenant in a plain T-shirt. Both hands empty.

The Lieutenant swallowed. Then, with complete obedience, stripped off everything he was carrying.

"Commander — we're going in like this?"

He stared at his own empty hands.

"How is this different from just walking up and dying?"

"We're going to join them. Not fight them." Smith pulled the corner of his mouth up slightly. "Show up armed with an aggressive attitude, and that's what gets you killed."

He started walking toward the concrete wall.

Each step closer, the pressure doubled. Then doubled again.

He could actually hear it now, a low, resonant hum drifting down from dozens of meters above. The phased-array radars, turning.

This was not a refugee camp.

This was what happened when technology and violence finished building each other.

30 meters from the gate, Smith stopped on his own. He did not take another step forward.

Because on either side of the gate, two enormous red Searchlights had already found them. Fixed. Unmoving.

Then, a crisp, clean mechanical sound. Two twin-barreled machine cannons rotating, their barrels swinging down and locking directly onto them both.

"Christ," Smith muttered, low. "This is insane."

He raised both hands high above his head.

➤ Next: Into the Prison