TWD - Chapter 490: A Veteran’s New Battlefield (Patreon)

The Reserves Intensive Training Camp had been established in an abandoned warehouse district on the outskirts of the industrial park, with Mike given full authority over it.

The former “Spearhead” mercenary believed in the most basic form of discipline: absolute obedience, brutal physical conditioning, living conditions that were austere to the point of cruelty, and inhuman stress tests.

Father Gabriel was training alongside them. He was also one of the camp’s earliest members.

On the very first day, the six members of the Police Gang were given a brutal introduction: a twenty-kilometer cross-country run in full gear. Anyone who failed would go without dinner and lose a portion of their points.

Licari was the heaviest of them. He vomited halfway through, and Lamson practically dragged him through the final five kilometers.

Dawn, Shepherd, and the others were gasping for breath as well. By the time they finished, they could barely lift their legs.

As American police officers, they had rarely done this much physical exercise since joining the force.

After all, this was the land of freedom!

Prisoner running away? Empty the magazine.

Prisoner resisting? Empty the magazine.

After enough years of that, there simply wasn't much need to run around.

That night, the members of the Police Gang squeezed two to a bunk in their crude sleeping quarters. Every muscle in their bodies ached, and their hands and feet were covered in blisters.

“Jesus! If I’d known it was going to be like this, I might as well have stayed at the hospital! At least there, it would’ve only taken one bullet. With training like this, are we... even going to survive?” Licari asked, his voice trembling on the verge of tears.

Lamson looked at the moonlight filtering through the window and shook his head. “I don’t know. But it’s still better than getting shot, and definitely better than being eaten by walkers.”

Gabriel rolled over on the bunk beside them and spoke softly in the darkness.

“Don’t say that!

“There’s a reason for the Intensive Training Camp! It means they expect great things from us!

“The instructors aren’t torturing us. They’re rebuilding us!

“This is the apocalypse. Rock Fortress needs warriors, and God needs us to do this as well. Only then can we protect more people!

“Work hard, prove your worth, and you’ll survive. God will protect you!”

Lamson blinked.

There was something inexplicably fervent about the man on the neighboring bunk, so he quietly shifted a little farther away.

Maybe this guy was some kind of big shot with his own particular faith.

It wasn't until the next day that Lamson realized the strange man was actually in mediocre physical shape. He had clearly never undergone any serious training and was in even worse condition than Lamson himself, despite Lamson having developed a bit of a beer belly.

Gabriel was pushing through on sheer religious fervor.

After watching him endure several rounds of training, Lamson couldn't help but admire him.

The training continued day after day: wake-up at dawn, a ten-kilometer run, weapon disassembly and reassembly, close-quarters combat, tactical formations, shooting drills, wilderness survival...

Mike worked on the new recruits the way a smith worked a piece of dull iron.

Some broke under the pressure and were eliminated. Once all their points had been deducted, they were sent off, crying and protesting, to perform the dirtiest and most exhausting labor.

Others endured. Their soft, loose bodies tightened, their muscles hardened, and little by little, they began to resemble real soldiers.

In just two weeks, forty-seven new names were added to Rock Fortress’s population registry.

The entire seventeen-member farm family relocated to Blackberry Ranch and was assigned a renovated townhouse. The head of the household became an assistant manager in the cultivation area outside the greenhouses, while his two sons joined the Defense Force Reserves training program.

With Captain Jack acting as intermediary, the riverside fishing families relocated in two groups.

The first group consisted of fifteen people, mostly women, children, and the elderly, who were housed in the temporary settlement area.

In exchange, Rock Fortress dispatched a fifteen-member Defense Force squad north under Shane’s command.

Three days later, they returned carrying the heads of five core members of the small raider group.

The gang had only eight members in total. The remaining three had jumped into the river to escape, and whether they survived was unknown.

Once the fishing families saw what had happened to their enemies, the second relocation went forward without any difficulty.

They brought fishing boats, nets, and extensive knowledge of the Tennessee River’s currents, water conditions, and terrain both upstream and downstream.

Calista immediately approved the establishment of the “Inland River Patrol,” led primarily by experienced fishermen and supported by the Defense Force to control traffic along the river.

The Riverbank Guerrillas, meanwhile, would be responsible for expanding outward through the waterways.

What pleased Calista most, however, was the hydroelectric plant technician.

Captain Jack made the trip personally and spent an entire day and night talking with the man inside the rundown control room of the hydroelectric plant.

The next day, the technician packed his few belongings, locked the plant gates, and returned with him.

“That little hydroelectric plant has two years left at most. The critical components are aging, and there’s no way to find replacements,” the technician told Calista during his report.

“But Rock Fortress’s energy system planning... it’s very forward-thinking. If you give me enough materials and assistants, I can increase the current power-generation efficiency by thirty percent within six months.”

Calista gave him the materials and assistants he needed.

Rock Fortress’s population was snowballing. Its production capacity was increasing, and the territory under its control continued to expand.

But Calista knew it was still nowhere near enough.

The Commonwealth had more than fifty thousand people. CRM’s civilian population and military together numbered more than two hundred thousand. And no one knew how large the hidden force in France might be.

Compared to monsters of that scale, her little force and territory were still in their infancy.

“Still not fast enough,” she murmured.

Leah happened to walk in and heard her.

“Cali, we’re already expanding much faster than most survivor groups.”

“Speed isn’t the goal. Survival is,” Calista replied without turning around. “But in this world, survival has a minimum required pace. Anyone who falls below it gets eliminated.”

She knew perfectly well that this aggressive expansion would inevitably create new risks.

It might attract the attention of some unknown powerful faction earlier than expected. It might also create instability within Rock Fortress itself.

But the Whisperers, the Saviors, the Commonwealth, CRM... every powerful faction was expanding.

If Rock Fortress stopped moving forward, it would effectively be falling behind.

She had no way back.

Neither did Rock Fortress.

Either they integrated this land and moved toward a stronger future, or one day they would be absorbed or crushed by something stronger than themselves.

Calista turned and walked over to her sister, that familiar determination burning in her eyes.

“Leah, we need to speed up construction of the production lines for the Walker Attractant and Walker Disruptor.

“Tell Dr. Jenner and the others that I don’t want ‘laboratory-grade products.’ I want ‘mass-produced goods’ that we can supply reliably. The next horde we clear is going to be much larger.”

...

Abraham stood inside the weapons maintenance shed on the west side of the training ground, running a soft cloth over his rifle again and again.

Rosita sat at the workbench across from him, expertly loading a pile of loose 9mm rounds into magazines.

After finishing the third magazine, she looked up at Abraham.

“Abraham, you’ve been acting strange ever since you came back from the junkyard,” she said with concern. “Are you still thinking about what happened there?”

Abraham stopped cleaning the rifle but didn't answer right away.

Instead, he raised it to eye level and looked through the iron sights toward the training field outside the shed.

Several recruits were practicing low crawls, kicking up clouds of dust.

“I’ve been thinking about the Walker Attractant and Walker Disruptor,” he said in a low voice. “Those... ‘little toys.’”

Abraham lowered the rifle and turned toward Rosita.

The usual impatience was gone from the big red-haired man’s face, replaced by a thoughtful expression.

“When I met Eugene, he told me he was a scientist. Said he could fix all of this.” Abraham’s gaze grew distant.

“He said there were still people doing research in Washington. Said he was a key part of it.”

He paused.

“I believed him, Rosita. I fucking believed him.”