Lieutenant Carmelo Torres is a character in The Last of Us Part II. He was the highest-ranking FEDRA officer known to be in the Seattle quarantine zone by the time it fell to the Washington Liberation Front.[1]
History[]
Background[]
Sometime after the Cordyceps brain infection outbreak began, what was left of Seattle was made into a quarantine zone by FEDRA, with Lieutenant Torres assuming command of the zone. As was the case in many quarantine zones, civilians became angry and violent due to the military's harsh measures. FEDRA forces routinely withheld rations, banished citizens for minor infractions, and even executed anyone suspected of conspiring with rebel groups. Torres justified the actions, citing how infected hordes disrupted supply routes.[1]
By the 2020s, the dissident groups in the QZ formed the Washington Liberation Front (WLF), a militant group made up of vicious and cunning survivors who were willing to do anything to topple FEDRA's control over the city. Torres, in turn, used equally extreme measures to fight the WLF (commonly referred to as Wolves).[2]
While there were many early successes against the Wolves, including the killing of key targets such as the founders Emma and Jason Patterson, the Wolves became more popular with the inhabitants of Seattle, as well as more coordinated.[3] Under the new leadership of Isaac Dixon, the group increased its successes and its brutality.[2] With their supply lines under constant attack from WLF forces, the military began to be unable to meet their ration distribution quotas, causing further unrest and Torres ordered Sergeant Ward to close the zone to new residents.[1]
As time went on, Torres became increasingly disillusioned with the fight against the Wolves, frequently visiting Rabbi Zivah Saunders at the Seattle synagogue for comfort and guidance.[4] The fighting eventually became so bad that Torres ordered that Saunders and her family be evacuated (much to the rabbi's gratitude) along with other key personnel, writing a memo to Paul Douglas at FEDRA headquarters that the city was lost to the Wolves. Torres implemented FEDRA evacuation protocols seen in other zones such as Pittsburgh and facilitated the withdrawal of military forces from the zone. During this time he penned a letter describing his feelings regarding the zone's collapse, angrily stating that the people were finally "freed" from FEDRA by the Wolves and that the Wolves would now have to take their place in order to keep the thousands of civilians alive. Torres said that he wanted the record to show that he did everything that he could, given the circumstances, for the city, and that he believed that one day someone would come along and hold the Wolves accountable for their "perceived wrongs", hoping that he would live to see it.[5]
Unfortunately for him, Torres and the few remaining soldiers in the Seattle FEDRA headquarters at the courthouse were attacked by the Wolves, resulting in the execution of his entire remaining staff. Locked in his office, Torres was eventually cornered and hacked to death with a machete by one of the Wolves.[6][7] The memo was never delivered to Douglas, as it was later found on Torres' corpse.[8]
Events of The Last of Us Part II[]
Ellie and Dina go to the courthouse in search of gasoline and find the remains of Torres's staff, having been cornered and brutally massacred by the Wolves in their headquarters. Going into an office, Ellie finds Torres' body, with the machete that killed him left in his corpse. After pulling it out, Torres' memo fell off of him, confirming his identity.[8] Ultimately, Ellie would become the person that Torres wished to see come for the Wolves.[9]
