[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 627 - Mind Reading

In the open ground ahead, vast Greenhouses built from waterproof tarps stretched out in neat rows, the lush green of vegetables plainly visible through the sheeting.

From even farther away came the unmistakable sounds of pigs and cattle.

A large-scale livestock zone.

Several horse-drawn carts moved along a smoothly graded road, hauling barrel after barrel of unidentified cargo.

Smith's mind kicked into overdrive.

He studied those neatly divided functional zones and ran the numbers fast.

Food output and clean water supply at this level.

The population here was somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000 people. No question.

Good God.

This wasn't a refuge.

This was a fully self-sustaining super settlement with a complete internal circulation system.

Under a hundred was a micro camp. A hundred to five hundred, small-to-medium. Five hundred to a thousand, large. A wild super settlement clearing a thousand people, there couldn't be more than a handful left in the entire United States.

Smith swallowed.

Whoever was running this place had management capabilities that went so far beyond ordinary it was almost disturbing. Pulling two thousand survivors from completely different walks of life and hammering them into something this orderly, the person at the top had to be terrifyingly capable.

He hadn't underestimated Leon.

Because even in peacetime, trying to organize a company retreat and keep the whole thing running smoothly was no easy feat. You had to account for every detail. By the end you'd be half dead from exhaustion. Getting through it in one piece already said everything about a person's ability.

Just making it work proved how strong you were.

......

Smith was still turning it over in his head. Down the corridor on the other side, Glenn was moving at a brisk pace toward the main administrative area.

He knocked on a pair of heavy oak double doors.

Leon was seated behind a wide desk, leafing through the base supply reports Ashley and Dawn had just brought in.

"Boss." Glenn stepped up to the desk.

"Just picked up two survivors at the main gate."

"Isn't that something you and Rick and Shawn handle?" Leon didn't look up. "If they check out clean, throw them in the outer labor camp to do grunt work. Let them earn their rations by the rules. Work hard, improve their conditions. Useful skill and no red flags, reassign them to a proper post."

"These two are different." Glenn's brow creased. "Something's off."

Leon set down the report and looked up.

"The man leading them is covered in injuries that should have been fatal." Glenn gestured to illustrate. "Bullet holes, knife wounds, shrapnel scarring — packed in dense."

"That guy is not an ordinary drifter." Glenn's voice was certain.

"Even stripped down to nothing, he radiates danger."

A flicker of interest moved through Leon's eyes.

Injuries?

Interesting.

"Where is he now?" Leon stood.

"Quarantine Room Three." Glenn answered immediately.

"Good. Let me go take a look at this tough guy."

A few minutes later.

The electronic lock outside the quarantine room beeped. The iron door swung open with perfect steadiness.

Smith spun around instantly. Beside him, the Lieutenant went rigid.

Leon came in first, Glenn trailing on his right with a weapon ready.

Smith's gaze locked onto the young man the moment he stepped through the door.

Leon was wearing a close-fitted black Tactical Vest, cut-resistant work pants below. No visible weapons anywhere on him.

And yet Smith's near-animal instincts were screaming.

The ease coming off this young man, that absolute, unhurried looseness in every movement, wasn't carelessness. It was the kind of relaxed that only came from being completely certain you could destroy whatever walked through that door.

There was no way he could take him.

This was the supreme leader of this super fortress?

Leon walked to the iron stool, pulled it out, and dropped into it with casual indifference. Legs crossed, back against the uncomfortable iron seatback like it was an armchair.

"I hear you picked up our recruitment broadcast and came all this way to join up?"

"Yes, sir." Smith adopted the military honorific without thinking.

"We've been hungry out there for a long time. Saw the high walls here, figured maybe we could come in and get something to eat."

He was trying to make himself as small as possible.

Leon heard that and smiled.

"Get something to eat?"

"You strike me as someone a little more than that."

His gaze moved across Smith at a measured pace.

"Glenn told me — the gunshot wound on your right shoulder is from a rifle round at close range, clean through."

"That knife scar across your abdomen is from a professional strangling slash. Somebody who knew exactly what they were doing."

"And standing there right now, feet staggered half a step apart, weight always on the balls of your feet — that's textbook indoor CQB close-quarters defensive stance."

Every sentence landed. Smith's expression darkened another shade with each one.

Dead on. Every single one.

These two had stripped him clean in a single glance.

"The calluses on your hands are thick and heavy. The wear at the web of your thumb comes from years of gripping heavy tactical firearms."

Leon looked him straight in the eyes.

"Tell me, a man who has survived countless high-intensity engagements. A man who is still alive."

"On a wasteland where you can scrounge up a pile of weapons from any police station you walk into."

"Would that man really end up showing up empty-handed at someone else's doorstep begging for food?"

"If you'd walked in here carrying so much as a pistol, I wouldn't have thought twice."

"But you don't just have no gun. You don't even have a knife."

"And you're asking me not to be suspicious?"

"The more you try to hide, the more cracks show."

Smith's throat worked as he swallowed. He hadn't imagined he wouldn't last even a single second under this man's scrutiny.

That sharp eye was genuinely chilling.

Beside him, the Lieutenant had gone so tense he wasn't letting himself breathe too hard.

"I don't like people playing cheap disguise games with me on my own turf."

"I'm asking you one last time."

"You came sniffing around my place, what exactly are you here to do that can't see the light of day?"

Leon tapped the table once.

"Next word out of your mouth is still nonsense, I'll make sure you regret it."

Smith took a slow breath. He knew there was no road left behind him.

A lie right now was just the most idiotic way to die.

Smith straightened. His legs snapped together with a crisp, practiced click.

"United States Army Special Forces. 1st Special Forces Detachment. Commander." A pause. "Colonel Smith."

His real background. All of it.

Behind Leon, Glenn's eyebrows went up.

Even a heavyweight like this was out wandering around out there?

Leon's expression didn't change.

Because he'd already started running what Smith was saying against Ashley's mind-reading. Word by word, cross-referencing in real time. The moment Smith's mouth diverged from his thoughts, Leon wasn't going to let him walk out of this room.

Whether this man was worth keeping alive was entirely up to the choices he made in the next few minutes.

"Continue," Leon said.

Smith kept his eyes fixed on him.

"I'm not here to gather intelligence. I have no hostile intentions toward this fortress."

"I brought my squad across half a state."

"Just to find someone."

His tone dropped into something completely serious.

"A girl."

Leon already knew who it was.

He raised his eyes. The look in them went cold all the way down.

"Who?" Leon asked.

Smith swallowed.

"Ashley Graham."

"She is the daughter of the current President. My mission is to find her and bring her back safely."

➤ Next: How Could Ashley Ever Be Taken Away