Commonwealth

Time had passed very slowly, and Dominic was pushing his subordinates to their limits to secure areas that might be overrun by walkers. Now that he had control, it was time to establish contact with the Commonwealth.

This organization was led by a woman named Pamela Milton, who had a strong character but lacked a broader vision beyond self-preservation.

The first contact was made a week ago, but now Dominic was making sure they clearly understood the decisions that needed to be made and the timeframe in which they had to act.

"Zz… No anomalies were detected, descending directly at the designated site."

Truth be told, Dominic was tired of so much traveling. In his efforts to unite all survivors in his area into a single point, he had to travel much more than he had anticipated. However, the benefits gained from these efforts far exceeded anything he had accomplished in the past year.

He hoped things would change; at least it would give meaning to all the sacrifices he and his men had made over time.

When the three helicopters landed, Dominic disembarked, protected by his primary escorts. Many were concerned about the possibility of Dominic being betrayed at any moment, so to be safe, he never traveled alone.

"Welcome to the Commonwealth. Pamela Milton is expecting you."

Dominic nodded and signaled for half of his men to stay and guard the helicopters before following the man leading them to the meeting.

Everything was in order. Many people were watching them with nervousness, and others seemed not entirely pleased with their visit. This didn't concern Dominic. Despite having part of his group in Detroit, if the Commonwealth decided to ignore his proposal, he would use them as a shield to temporarily halt the walkers from Canada.

Upon reaching the meeting site, Mrs. Milton was waiting for them. "We are very grateful that you took the trouble to visit our home. Please, have a seat."

Dominic nodded, extended his hand, and said, "Dominic Williams, a pleasure, Mrs. Milton."

"The pleasure is all mine."

Everyone sat down. Dominic was accompanied by Alicia and one of his high-ranking members to provide more detailed information on what was about to be discussed.

"You should know why I'm here. I suppose you all have an idea of the response you will give today." Dominic had proposed merging his community with the Commonwealth, which would result in over four hundred thousand survivors as things currently stand.

Pamela smiled, looked at the documents on the table, and said, "The proposal you offered is very tempting. Believe me, we have considered it thoroughly. However, we also believe that the development we have here is sufficient to protect ourselves, and we sincerely think that you don't need any protection either."

"It's not that we find the merger useless; rather, we believe that our leadership is more peaceful and much more effective for long-term survival," Pamela said with a slight smile.

Dominic nodded, pulled out a new file of documents, and said, "This is a community of 150,000 survivors in Canada. When we learned that the walkers in Canada were different from those in our country, we had to search for survivor communities using surveillance drones, and what we discovered was this community that had been recently destroyed by walkers."

"We know that your community is strong, independent, and sovereign. But you would be a poor leader if you did not consider all our proposals and understood perfectly well that the level of power of both communities should not be compared since there is no comparison."

"Are we to take that as a threat?" asked a man in the group, glaring fiercely at Dominic, who seemed unbothered.

Dominic smiled, looked at the man, and said, "You can take my words as a warning. We know that the walkers from Canada are migrating to our country in small, large, and massive waves."

"We are on the outskirts of Ohio, but surely you would have been destroyed if my community had not decimated all those walkers with bomber planes."

Pamela took the documents that detailed exactly where the largest hordes of walkers were located. The distance wasn't great; she knew that if those walkers invaded, they would surely reach this place.

"We have strong walls."

Alicia thought this was a joke, but apparently it wasn't, so she played a video of walkers scaling a wall with ease that was over twenty meters high.

"As you can see, the walkers in this video can scale walls up to 20 meters high, piling their bodies on top of one another like uncontrollable, ferocious beasts." Dominic could see the fear seeping into these people.

Dominic then took advantage and said, "I don't care about leading the country, nor do I care about having power. We will all die sooner or later, and we won't be here when the country is completely free of walkers. What I really care about is that all the humans who can be saved do not die insignificantly, and that's why I'm here."

"If you accept being part of my organization, all of you will be sent to Washington, D.C., where you can live in the recently cleared city, and we will establish a military base at this location to serve as a reinforcement to the base we are building in Detroit."

"Right now, you might be wondering why you have to move to another place. The answer is very simple: if we use nuclear bombs, the areas most affected will be the borders between Canada and the United States, and clearly being in Ohio is a big mistake."

Dominic paused and pointed out, "We are running out of time, Mrs. Pamela. The first wave of walkers to make contact with our border is five days away at the pace they are moving."

Pamela nodded, looked at Dominic, and said, "I accept."

"Ma'am, we need to consider this."

"There is nothing to consider. If we join the New Dawn Unification, our ranks could increase to over a million survivors by the end of the year. The key to progress is that we are united, and I will not be the one to make the difference."

Pamela was right; if all the major communities in the United States united, the numbers could exceed a million survivors, which would break any type of pursuit they might face.

"We are not strangers, Pamela. We all belong to the future, and surely we will die reinforcing that belief." Dominic knew they would not refuse. However, there would be a significant problem in relocating thousands of people, so they would first focus on the younger ones.

As for food, Dominic had farms led by Hershel and hundreds of fishermen harvesting tons of seafood that could be prepared in various ways.