Chương 179: A Sense of Security

"Alright..." Evelyn nodded silently, accepting his answer.

"What did you see down there? Can you at least tell me that?"

"That, I can do." Vince then gave her a detailed rundown of everything he had seen. He described the layout of the ground and his intention to scavenge some crystals.

"Those mutated zombies are definitely dead. No carbon-based lifeform could survive that kind of blast and heat," Evelyn mused after a moment of thought.

"But the 'Tree'... I don't think it's dead. Why are you so convinced it's still alive? The deep crater in the middle alone isn't enough to prove it."

"Call it intuition," Vince replied. Hearing this, Evelyn didn't seem surprised. She simply lowered her voice and asked, "Is it a secret, or is it actually intuition?"

"A bit of both," Vince said, nodding. Evelyn nodded in return.

"Raven gets intuition like that sometimes too. Intuition is just highly compressed logic. An Awakened's brain is far more active and operates at a much higher capacity than an ordinary person's. That makes your 'gut feelings' freakishly accurate sometimes." Stepping up to the edge of the roof, she gazed out at the distant cloud of grey ash and the zombies milling below.

"We need to leave as soon as possible."

"Leave here?" Vince asked, pointing at the roof beneath their feet.

"No. Here." Evelyn jerked her chin in the direction of the gas station.

"I could tell you were hesitating earlier."

"How did you figure that out?" Vince looked at her curiously. Honestly, he was more curious as to why everyone in her crew seemed to possess a master's degree in reading faces.

"From the moment I mentioned the Quarantine Zone might have twenty thousand people..." Evelyn cast him a side glance before turning and walking back the way they came.

"Let's go. We have a lot to prepare before we move out."

"Hold on. I haven't even agreed yet." Despite his words, Vince followed her.

"Are you that confident I'll just pack up and go with you?" She was right. Hearing the sheer population of the Quarantine Zone had shaken Vince's resolve. He wasn't sure if heading there right now was the best move. After all, they weren't exactly starving. There was a small river just outside the ring road. If they figured out a way to purify the water, thirst wouldn't be an issue either. Providing for a hundred people was entirely manageable. But twenty thousand people in a Quarantine Zone?

He could easily imagine the absolute chaos of its early establishment. Blindly dragging his hundred-plus people into that mess would be like pouring a bottle of pure water into a muddy pond. They wouldn't make a splash. They would just get bogged down in the filth.

"You've already decided, haven't you? Hesitating is pointless anyway. If you don't go, how many of your people will actually stay behind with you?" Evelyn reached the edge of the roof. A small street separated them from the next building, a gap of about thirty meters. She stopped right at the ledge, naturally raising her arms slightly as if waiting to be picked up. Her voice remained entirely flat.

"You. That woman. That girl. That boy. Who else? Power might give you a sense of security, but what about the rest of them? They're just normal humans. And for normal humans, the only real security is the herd." The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Watching her psychoanalyze him while simultaneously waiting to be carried back like a piece of luggage was incredibly irritating. Yet, Vince couldn't refute a single word she said.

Left with no choice, he wrapped an arm around her waist. Taking a short running start, he pushed off hard. He launched across the thirty-meter gap like a rocket, landing heavily on the opposite roof. He wanted to shoot back that Cody would probably stay too, considering his sister was with Vince. But he swallowed the words. It just sounded too pathetic. Evelyn was right. To Vince, a Quarantine Zone of twenty thousand people looked like a massive quagmire.

Perhaps that was exactly why she had handed him the "Colonel Lin" identity. It was a foothold. It was a way for him to establish himself in that quagmire without wasting time violently tearing down and fighting the existing system. But to Ben and the others, it was an entirely different story. No matter how chaotic it was over there, twenty thousand people were still alive. That meant, at the very least, there was a wall keeping the zombies out.

High walls, barbed wire, a standing army, and thousands of fellow humans. These were the things that gave ordinary people security. If the sky fell, twenty thousand people would hold it up together. They wouldn't have to rely solely on Vince to bear the weight. Besides, there was no guarantee Vince could carry them forever. The more Awakened that gathered around Vince, the more insecure the ordinary survivors felt.

After all, if a massive zombie tide arrived one day, Vince and his super-powered crew could easily escape across the rooftops. What would happen to the rest of them? Vince knew that for Ben's group, which was composed mostly of ordinary people, the Quarantine Zone was an absolute, non-negotiable destination. The security provided by a Superman could never compare to the security provided by "order." Vince set Evelyn down.

Seeing that her eyes didn't even ripple at the sudden weightlessness anymore, a profound sense of defeat washed over him. But he quickly seized an opening to tease her.

"If you put it that way, the people on your buses might actually want to stay here with me..."

"You really are..." Evelyn's eyes crinkled in a rare smile. Through the lenses of her gas mask, she gazed into Vince's eyes behind his own.

"You might be right. After all, they can barely get enough to eat. To them, your place must look like an absolute haven. They might actually want to stay. But the longer time drags on, the more dangerous it gets here..." She turned and continued walking.

"Are you planning to kill all several thousand of these zombies?"

"Who knows? Maybe I can kill them all." Vince remained noncommittal. He had already decided they were leaving, but his inner contrarian just couldn't let her have the last word. With the "Colonel Lin" identity backing his sheer power, he could easily make a comfortable living even in the quagmire of the Quarantine Zone. That wouldn't be an issue. Hunkering down in the residential complex seemed safe for now, but it relied entirely on luck.

If they woke up one day to find hundreds of thousands of normal zombies and tens of thousands of mutants clogging the streets below, even escaping across the rooftops would be incredibly difficult. So, he was just being playfully stubborn. Evelyn seemed to sense his shift in attitude. Her tone relaxed as she pressed on.

"And what if tens of thousands more show up? Or what if the 'Tree' comes back looking for revenge? Don't forget, based on our deductions, it possesses intelligence..."

"Are you that certain it'll come looking for revenge? I already beat it into a retreat..." Vince skillfully dodged the question about the tens of thousands of zombies. Linjiang City had a population of thirteen million. A massive zombie tide could form at any moment. Instead, he pivoted to her second point.

"In a direct, head-on fight between you and it, who is stronger?" Evelyn ignored his deflection and asked a question of her own.

"I already gave you the full rundown. It's stronger." Vince answered, completely baffled as to where she was going with this.

"You see? A guy as strong as you is still incredibly petty and holds grudges. If it's stronger than you, it's only natural that it is even pettier and holds bigger grudges. Once it recovers, you will obviously be the first person it comes after..." Evelyn didn't even look back. She delivered the line with absolute, flat calmness, as if stating an undeniable law of physics.

"I..." Vince suddenly stopped in his tracks, letting out a long, heavy sigh. He jogged a few steps to catch up, turning his head to look at her.

"Has anyone ever told you that you have a very weird sense of humor?"

"Yes."

"Wait, really? Who?"

"Holden."

"The guy driving the car? The staff officer who dropped to his knees the second he saw me?"

"Correct."

"And this whole 'face-reading' thing you guys do..."

"He is the professional. I just learned it from him."

"..." Vince secretly made up his mind. When they got back, he was definitely going to corner his new 'underling' and learn a few tricks. You could never have too many skills in the apocalypse.