After the door closed, only the Governor and Martinez were left in the hall.
The smile on the Governor's face slowly faded.
He walked back to the map, stared at the red circle, and lightly tapped it with his finger.
The prison in Griffin. The place Woodbury had scouted three times, only to give up each time because it was packed with walkers.
In theory, a prison should be one of the best possible strongholds in the apocalypse, provided you had the ability to clear out the hundreds of walkers inside.
Clearly, someone had that ability.
But it wasn't them.
"Martinez, are you sure," the Governor said slowly, every word sharp and distinct, "that they have full control of the entire prison? Not just some corner of it?"
"I'm sure." Martinez nodded. "We saw three guard posts: the roof of the main building, the watchtower, and the corner of the east wall. Their patrols cover the entire outer wall. They even..."
Martinez hesitated for a moment. "They even seem to have cleared the sports field. It used to be packed with walkers, but now it's empty."
The room fell silent.
Martinez gave a tentative cough. "So there's a group out there that pulled off something we always thought was 'impossible.'"
"'Impossible'?" The Governor repeated the word, staring hard at the map. "We thought it was impossible because the cost was too high.
Clearing a walker horde that dense takes a huge amount of ammunition, tight coordination, and the willingness to risk casualties. For us, it wasn't worth it."
He turned around. "For them, apparently it was."
Jealousy.
The word gave a faint prick inside the Governor's chest.
He didn't like that feeling.
Jealousy was a weak emotion. The mindset of a small man.
He was the leader of Woodbury. He had a functioning community, electricity, clean water, armed forces, and people who obeyed him.
But that prison had seven-meter-high concrete walls.
It had separate cell blocks, broad interior space for farming and livestock, ready-made medical rooms, kitchens, and warehouses.
If it was fully cleared, that place could hold two or three hundred people, perhaps even more.
And it was easy to defend and hard to attack, far more defensible than an open town like Woodbury.
It was a place he had wanted for a long time.
In the Governor's plan, once Woodbury's population grew a little more, once his men were better trained, once he gathered enough ammunition and explosives...
But someone had gotten there first.
"How did they do it?" the Governor asked, as if talking to himself. "Even with ammunition, clearing that many walkers would draw in even more. Unless... unless they moved extremely fast, or had some special method."
He was clearly not looking for an answer. Before Martinez could even frown and think of one, the Governor continued murmuring, "A complete community, with walls, organization, and vehicles. Do you think they could be 'integrated' into us?"
Martinez answered cautiously, "Their defenses are strong. A head-on conflict would cost us heavily. And we know nothing about them."
"It's precisely because their defenses are strong that they must have something worth protecting." The Governor's eyes sharpened. "People, supplies... in this new world, all of it is hard currency."
"What do you make of them?" the Governor suddenly asked.
Martinez answered carefully, "Well organized. Capable of surviving. For now, they seem defensive. No signs of expansion."
"For now," the Governor repeated. "But resources are limited, Martinez. Once they have strong walls, they'll want more land, more food, more people. Today, they're neighbors. Tomorrow, they could be a threat."
That was the Governor's usual logic, and the hidden rule that kept Woodbury going.
The outside world was always full of threats. Only by standing united around him, by giving up a measure of freedom, could people be safe.
Most of the residents believed it, or chose to believe it, because that lie supported the "normal life" they cherished.
The Governor had described the massacre at the Atlanta nursing home as the place being overrun by walkers because it lacked defenses, and dressed up his looting as "securing necessary resources for Woodbury."
That had happened last year. Only one man had made it back alive, and he said they had run into a mysterious organization with overwhelming firepower.
He had barely escaped with his life, though he had managed to bring back most of the supplies and firearms taken from the nursing home.
But the Governor could not let that information spread.
If the residents of Woodbury learned that such a powerful force existed near Atlanta, they would surely want to join it.
So in the end, that subordinate became one of the trophies in his glass tanks.
The Governor paused. "More importantly, I don't like having a force I don't control and don't understand operating within my range. It keeps me from sleeping soundly."
The Governor walked to the window and opened the blinds a crack.
Outside, Woodbury was preparing dinner, and smoke rose from several chimneys.
"The price of safety," he said softly.
"What?" Martinez asked.
The Governor let the blinds fall. When he turned back, there was no trace of emotion on his face.
"Woodbury is open," he said. "We let residents walk the streets. We let children play. We let everyone feel as if life has gone back to how it used to be.
That's good. It keeps morale up. But the price is that our defenses face outward. We rely on walls, patrols, and keeping threats outside."
The Governor pointed at the prison on the map. "That place is different. Its defenses face inward. The walls themselves keep walkers out, and the inside is divided into sections.
Even if something breaks through, they can seal it off and isolate it. They can live inside without worrying that a walker will appear around the next corner."
"Sounds like you admire their model more," Martinez said, his tone probing.
"I admire their efficiency," the Governor corrected him. "But I prefer our model, because our model lets me control everything.
I let them live in a world where they don't have to face walkers. At the prison, everyone can look through the barbed wire and see exactly what's outside."
"However," he continued, "that doesn't mean we can't learn from them. And it doesn't mean... we can't borrow from them."
Martinez looked up sharply. "Borrow?"
"That prison is a good place. Too good to let it stay in someone else's hands for long."
"So you still want to send people in," Martinez understood.
The Governor walked back to the desk and looked at Martinez. "We need to know more. How many people do they have? Who's leading them? Where are their weaknesses? The exact layout of their defenses. Everything."
"You mean..." Martinez had a vague idea.
"We make contact first," the Governor said, lightly tapping the desk with his index finger. "Friendly contact.
We can be lost survivors. Or survivors looking to trade.
We'll see how they react. If they're sheep, we herd them in.
If they're hedgehogs..."
A cold glint flashed through his eyes. "Then we find a way to pull out their quills."
...
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