Season 1-Episode 6: TS-19
Part 2:
"Morning." Rick said walking in.
"Are you hung over?" Carl asked with a smirk. "Mom said you'd be."
"Mom is right." Rick answered.
"Mom has that annoying habit." Lori said she chewed bacon.
"Eggs. Powdered, but-but I do 'em good." T-Dog announced. "I bet you can't tell."
Glenn moaned in agony as Penny rubbed his back.
"Protein helps the hangover." T-Dog served Glenn eggs. Glenn moaned again.
"Where'd all this come from?" Rick asked.
"Jenner." Penny answered. "He thought we could use it."
"Don't ever ever ever let me drink again." Glenn groaned. Penny rubbed his back to sooth him.
"Hey." Shane greeted.
"Hey." Rick responded. "Feel as bad as I do?"
"Worse." Shane replied.
"The hell happened to you?" T-Dog asked Shane, seeing deep scratches on his neck. "You're neck."
"I must've done it in my sleep." Shane responded as he sat down.
"Never seen you do that before." Rick said.
"Me neither." Shane said. "Not like me at all." Penny noticed he looked right at Lori when he said that. She knew there was more to the story.
Daryl came in clutching his head. He looked right at Penny. Penny ducked her head nervously.
"You okay?" Glenn asked her, noticing.
"Yeah." Penny raised her head and smiled at him. "Just eat. It'll help that hangover." She patted his back and gave a quick look to Andrea. They gave each other a nod, agreeing that they were still going through with their plan.
"Morning." Jenner said walking in.
"Hey, doc." Shane greeted.
"Doctor, I don't mean to slam you with questions first thing-" Dale said.
"But you will anyway." Jenner finished.
"We didn't come here for the eggs." Andrea stated.
Jenner took everyone to Zone 5.
"Give me playback of TS-19." Jenner told the computer.
"Playback of TS-19."
"Few people ever got a chance to see this. Very few." Jenner said.
"Is that a brain?" Carl asked, looking at the screen.
"An extraordinary one." Jenner replied. "Not that it matters in the end. Take us in for E.I.V."
"Enhanced internal view."
The screen zoomed in on the brain, and a bunch of bright lights could be seen spiraling throughout all over.
"What are those lights?" Shane asked.
"It's a person's life, experiences, memories." Jenner explained. "It's everything. Somewhere in that organic wiring, all those ripples of light, is you. The thing that makes you unique. And human."
"You don't make sense, ever?" Daryl looked at the screen.
"Those are synapses. Electrical impulses in the brain that carry all the messages. They determine everything a person says, does, or thinks from the moment of birth, to the moment of death."
"Death? That's what this is, a vigil?" Rick asked.
"Yes." Jenner replied. "Or rather, the playback of the vigil."
"This person died?" Andrea asked. "Who?"
"Test Subject 19." Jenner replied. "Someone who was bitten and infected. And volunteered to have us, record the process. Vi, scan forward to the first event."
"Scanning to first event."
"What is that?" Glenn asked, looking at the screen.
"It invades the brain like meningitis." Jenner explained. "The adrenal glands hemorrhage, the brain goes into shutdown, then the major organs. Then death."
The brain on the screen went black, indicating that the person died.
"Everything you ever were or ever will be… Gone." Jenner finished.
"Is that what happened to Jim?" Sophia asked Carol in her sweet voice.
"Yes." Carol answered.
Jenner noticed Andrea tearing up. Penny hugged her friend to give comfort.
Don't worry Andrea, it'll all be over soon, Penny thought as Andrea hugged back.
"She lost somebody two days ago." Lori explained. "Her sister."
"I lost somebody too. I know how devastating it is." Jenner calmly said to Andrea. "Scan to the second event."
"Scanning to second event."
"The resurrection times vary wildly. We had reports of it happening in as little as three minutes." Jenner explained as Penny released Andrea to look at the screen. "The longest we've heard of was eight hours. In the case of this patient, it was two hours, one minute… Seven seconds."
The brain on the screen soon had small ripples of red lights at the brain stem.
"It restarts the brain?" Lori questioned.
"No, just the brainstem." Jenner corrected. "Basically, it gets them up and moving."
"But they're not alive." Penny spoke up.
"You tell me." Jenner said to her, giving her a funny look.
"It's nothing like before." Penny said looking at the brain. "Most of that brain is dark."
"Dark, lifeless, dead." Jenner said. "The frontal lobe, the neocortex, the human part-that doesn't come back. The you part. Just a shell driven by mindless instinct."
Suddenly a flash of light went through the brain, making the red lights go away.
"God. What was that?" Carol asked.
"He shot his patient in the head." Andrea looked to Jenner. "Didn't you?"
"Vi, power down the main screen and workstations." Jenner commanded.
"Powering down main screen and workstations."
"You have no idea what it is do you?" Penny said pouting.
"It could be microbial, viral, parasitic, fungal." Jenner answered.
"Or the wrath of God?" Jackie said.
"There's that." Jenner said.
"Somebody must know something." Andrea said. "Somebody, somewhere."
"There are others right? Other facilities?" Carol asked.
"There may be some." Jenner replied. "People like me."
"But you don't know? How can you not know?" Rick insisted.
"Everything went down. Communications, directives-all of it." Jenner responded. "I've been in the dark for almost a month."
"So it's not just here." Andrea said. "There's nothing left anywhere? Nothing?" Andrea said it as it she almost wanted to hear it. She was bolting out tonight, and she didn't want to go if there was still hope out there somewhere. "That's what you're really saying, right?"
"Man, I'm gonna get shit faced drunk again." Daryl said clutching his head.
"Dr. Jenner, I know this has been taxing for you, and I hate to ask one more question but… That clock-it's counting down." Dale said pointing at the big red timer. "What happens at zero?"
"The basement generators-they run out of fuel." Jenner said quickly.
"And then?" Rick insisted.
Jenner didn't answer. He just walked away.
"Vi, what happens when the power runs out?" Rick asked Vi.
"When the power runs out, facility wide decontamination will occur."
"Decontamination? What does that mean?" Glenn said as he, Shane, Rick, T-Dog, and Penny ran down into the basement.
"I don't like the way Jenner clammed up." Shane replied. "The way he just wandered off like that."
"What's wrong with him? Seriously, man." T-Dog said once they were in the basement. "Is he nuts, medicated, what?"
Rick looked at a map and pointed to the right.
"In there." Rick said while everyone followed him.
"Check that way." He told Glenn and Penny. "Shane." He gestured Shane to come with him. T-Dog went off by himself.
Penny walked with Glenn as they looked around. She began thinking about her plan with Andrea.
"You okay?" Glenn asked, noticing the look on her face.
"Yeah, I'm fine." She replied, obviously not meaning it.
"It's okay. You can tell me later." Glenn said, giving her an assuring glance.
They spotted a generator that had no more fuel.
"It's empty." Penny said after shaking it.
The lights suddenly went out.
"Emergency lighting on."
"What's happening?" Glenn asked worried.
"I don't know." Penny responded.
They ran back to Rick and Shane.
"Hey, you guys kill the lights?" Glenn asked.
"Nah, it just went out." Shane replied.
"Anything?" Rick asked.
"Yeah, a lot of dead generators and more empty fuel drums than I can count." T-dog replied.
"It can't be down to just that one." Shane said looking at the last generator.
"We need to find out what's going on, right now." Rick said sternly.
The five ran back upstairs for answers.
"Rick?" Lori called out.
"Jenner, what's happening?" Rick begged.
"The system is dropping all the nonessential uses of power. It's designed to keep the computers running to the last possible second. That started as we approached the half-hour mark. Right on schedule." Jenner explained.
Penny saw the timer at 31 minutes and 27 seconds.
"It was the French." Jenner suddenly said.
"What?" Andrea asked, confused.
"They were the last ones to hold out as far as I knew. While our people were bolting out the doors and committing suicide in the hallways, the stayed in the labs 'till the end. They thought they were close to a solution."
"What happened?" Jackie asked.
"The same thing that's happening here. No power grid. Ran out of juice." Jenner answered. "The world runs on fossil fuel. I mean, how stupid is that?"
"Let me tell you." Shane started.
"To hell with it Shane I don't even care." Rick said. "Lori, grab our things. Everybody, get your stuff. We're getting out of here, now!"
"Okay." Lori panted.
An alarm began echoing through the room, making everyone jump.
"30 minutes to decontamination."
"Y'all heard Rick! Get your stuff!" Shane shouted. The doors suddenly became locked and shut.
"Did you just lock us in?" Glenn panicked. "He just locked us in!"
"You son of a bitch! You locked us in here!" Daryl ran after Jenner with Shane going to stop him.
"Jenner, open that door now." Rick demanded.
"There's no point. Everything top side is locked down. The emergency exists are sealed."
"Well open the damn things." Daryl demanded.
"That's not something I control. The computers do. I told you, once that front door closed, it wouldn't open again. You heard me say that. It's better this way."
"What is? What happens in 28 minutes?" Rick insisted. When Jenner didn't answer, Rick got angry. "What happens in 28 minutes!"
"Do you know what this place is!" Jenner started yelling. "We protected the public from very nasty stuff! Weaponized smallpox! Ebola strains that could wipe out half the country! Stuff you don't want getting out! Ever!" He sat down, relaxing a little. "In the event of a catastrophic power failure-In a terrorist attack for example-H.I.T.'s are deployed to prevent any organisms from getting out."
"What are H.I.T.'s?" Penny asked nervously as Daryl went and held her protectively.
"Vi, define." Jenner commanded.
"H.I.T.'s, high impulse thermo baric fuel - air explosives consist of a two-stage aerosol ignition that produces a blast wave of significantly greater power and duration than any other known explosive except nuclear. The vacuum pressure effect ignites the oxygen at between 5,000 and 6,000 degrees, and is useful when the greatest loss of life and damage to structures is desired."
"It sets the air on fire." Jenner said calmly. "No pain. An end to sorrow, grief, regret… Everything."
Penny and Andrea looked at each other as Daryl clutched her tighter. Penny teared up.
Was this really how she wanted to go?
