AN: This one's a fairly long chapter and remains faithful (apart from the CARYL additions!) to the TS-19 episode in Season One. I wanted to get this out in one hit so that we can move onto the farm - where exciting things are about to happen! Hope you enjoy! xx
Heavy footsteps echoed down the concrete stairs as Rick led T-Dog, Glenn and Shane down to the basement to check out the generators.
"Decontamination? What does that mean?" Glenn panted out as they ran down another set of stairs, heading further and further underground.
"I don't like the way Jenner clammed up and wandered off like that."
"What's wrong with him? Seriously. Is he nuts? Medicated? What?" T-Dog brought up the rear of their small group as Rick ran his finger over the basement plan tacked to the wall.
"In there." They walked into the generator room and discovered the floor littered with empty fuel drums. Rick ordered them to fan out to check the whole of the large expanse.
"Emergency lighting on."
"What the hell is this?" Shane muttered as the overhead lights flickered and then went dark. A few dim lights brightened the room enough for them to see that there was only one remaining fuel drum, and that it was fairly close to empty.
Back in their room, Lori waved a hand near the ceiling only to discover that the air conditioning system had shut down. She forced a smile over to Carl and tried not to let her concern show on her face; knowing full well that with the air conditioning units powering down, the rest of the building would shortly follow.
After Edwin had made his shock announcement he had returned to his quarters to shave and make himself more presentable. He sat at his desk and picked up a photograph in a gilt edged frame. "I did the best that I could, in the time that I had. I hope you'd be proud of that. " He sniffed back the tears that threatened and pressed a kiss against the cold frame. "We always think there's going to be more time." He walked over to stare out over the dark lab below, hearing the wheeze of the failing generators. "Then it runs out." The hum of the air conditioning stopped completely and the silence was almost deafening. Lights began to flicker in the hallways and the survivors started to pour out of their rooms into the hallway.
"Why's the air off?"
"And the lights in our room?"
"Why'd everything turn off?"
"Energy use is being prioritised."
"And air isn't a priority?"
"It's not up to me. Zone Five is shutting itself down."
"Zone Five? Hey! What the Hell does that mean?" Merle pushed his way through the others to where Edwin was making his way into the darkened lab. "Hey, man, I'm talkin' to you. What do you mean it's shutting itself down?" Merle caught hold of Edwin's arm and forced him to face them. "How can a building do anything?"
"You'd be surprised." They were met in the near empty lab by Rick and the others who had made their way up from the basement.
"Jenner, what's happening?" Rick muttered in low tones to the Doctor and Edwin's steps faltered slightly as he turned to face the other man.
"The system is dropping all non-essential uses of power. It's designed to keep the computers running to the last possible second. It started as we approached the half hour mark;" Edwin pointed at the countdown timer on the wall, "right on schedule." Everyone gathered underneath the timer and Edwin looked around their concerned faces. "It was the French," he continued.
"What?"
"They were the last ones to hold out as far as we know. While our people were bolting out the doors and committing suicide in the halls, they stayed in the labs to the end. They thought they were close to a solution."
"What happened?" Jacqui questioned softly, seeing the way that Edwin was refusing to look anyone directly in the eyes; there was something he was holding back – but what?
"Same thing that's happening here; no power grid – we ran out of juice. The world runs on fossil fuel. I mean, how stupid is that?" Shane lunged for Edwin, only to be held back by Rick who held out a hand to his wife.
"Lori, grab our things. Everybody – we're getting out of here now!" The group started to break apart in order to run back to their rooms to collect their scattered belongings; they stopped in their tracks when a piercing alarm filled the air.
"What's that?" Rick held onto Carl's shoulder in an effort to calm the boy's panicked expression.
"Thirty minutes to decontamination." Vi's computerised monotone filled the room and all eyes turned to where the countdown timer was now displayed across the large viewscreens.
"Doc, what's going on here, dammit!" Shane called across the room as Rick started to urge everyone to continue gathering their belongings.
"Y'all heard me, now get your stud and let's go!"
"Let's go!" T-Dog waved everyone to follow him up the ramp and into the corridor leading to the rooms they had been using. Rick looked over to see a steel shutter fall down over their escape route.
"Did he just lock us in? He just locked us in!" Glenn stopped halfway across the room and swivelled his head from side to side in full blown panic mode. Edwin took a seat at one of the workstations and stared into the webcam.
"We've hit the thirty minute window; I am recording."
"Momma!" Sophia cried out in panic and stumbled as she raced across the room trying to make her way across to Carol. She was scooped up by Daryl who ran across the length of the room to pass her to her mother. He stood close by their sides; feeling Carol trembling against him. Her claustrophobia was rising with each passing second; as soon as she saw that steel shutter slide down she had been unable to prevent the rising panic. Carol felt Daryl's hand come to rest on her shoulder; half on the yoke of her cotton shirt half on the bare curve of her throat. She felt the length of his arm pressing against her back and the absent stroke of his thumb against her neck; trying to offer comfort. She concentrated on the soothing rhythm of his strokes and forced her breath in and out in an effort to control her demons. Merle was standing on her other side and watched as his brother tried to set Carol at ease; he too could feel the tremors wracking her body and couldn't stand to see her in pain any longer.
"You sonofabitch!" Merle suddenly lunged at Edwin, how could he just sit so calmly at his workstation while all Hell broke loose around him?
"Shane! Shane!" Rick yelled out for Shane to restrain Merle who was racing forward in full attack mode, his whole body vibrating with the force of his fury.
"You let us out!" Merle pulled the Doctor's chair back by grabbing hold of the back of his lab coat and pulling roughly; he raised his arm back ready to bring down an empty whiskey bottle on top of the Doctor' head.
"No, no, don't! Don't do it!" T-Dog and Shane pulled him back and Shane wrestled the bottle out of Merle's grip.
"Jenner, open that door now." Rick kept his voice deliberately calm and even; just like he was negotiating a hostage release. Edwin sat back in his chair and straightened his once pristine lab coat and tie.
"There's no point, everything topside is locked down and the emergency exits are sealed."
"Well, open the damned things!" Merle exclaimed, ready to grab Carol and Sophia and bolt for the door.
"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 twenty eight minutes?" Rick leant over Edwin's workstation and planted his fist firmly down; making Edwin face him. "What happens in twenty eight minutes?" he repeated more forcefully this time. Shane moved behind the Doctors chair, preparing to 'help' Edwin to his feet if necessary.
"You know what this place is! We protected the public from very nasty stuff!" Edwin got right up in Shane's face as he almost screamed out the words. "Weaponised smallpox!" He turned towards Carol huddling Sophia in front of her; both cringing at his very Ed-like tones. Daryl stopped his gentle caress of Carol's neck and stepped forward threateningly; Edwin seemed to get the message and pivoted on his feet to address his next comments to Andrea and Dale, who were standing close together nearest the monitors. "Ebola strains to wipe out half the country! Stuff that you don't want getting out! Ever!" Edwin realised that he was raging like a madman and made a conscious effort to bring himself under control. He crossed back over to his workstation and rubbed a hand over his face as he sat back down. He took a calming breath and continued in a more professional tone – "In the event of a catastrophic power failure and a terrorist attack, for example, HITs are deployed to prevent any organisms from getting out."
"HITs?" Rick questioned, it was not a term that he was familiar with. Edwin dropped his gaze and addressed the computer.
"Vi – define."
"HIT – High Impulse Thermobaric 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 ignites the oxygen between 5,000 and 6,000 degrees, and is useful when the greatest loss of life and damage to structures is desired." As Vi droned on mechanically Carol collapsed in tears and remained upright only due to the supporting arms of Daryl and Merle across her back. Sophia stretched out a hand and was clinging tightly to Merle's hand with her head buried at Carol's waist shaking with fear.
"It sets the air on fire." Edwin summed up and Rick turned slowly watching the faces of his group one by one. "No pain. An end to sorrow. Grief. Regret. Everything." There was silence as the group tried to absorb the information; silence that was only broken when Merle threw the empty of
""Open the damn door!"
"Outta my way!" Shane raced up the ramp, hefting a machete over his head and tossing the pick axe to Merle. Together they pounded furiously at the steel plate, barely even scratching the surface despite their best efforts.
"You should have left well enough alone, it would have been so much easier."
"Easier for who?" Lori bitterly rebutted and Edwin swivelled around in his chair to face the woman; trying so desperately to calm her very frightened son.
"All of you. You know what's out there. A short brutal life and an agonising death. Your sister…what was her name?" Edwin called over to Andrea who was sitting with her arms crossed over upraised knees.
"Amy." She looked up and quietly replied.
"Amy," Edwin repeated. "You know what this does. You've seen it. Is that what you really want for your wife and son?" Edwin addressed the last remark to Rick who had crossed over to kneel beside Lori and Carl. Rick rose to his feet and spat out a harsh reply.
"I don't want this!"
"I cain't make a dent." Shane leant exhaustedly over a nearby workstation and shared a frustrated glance with Rick.
"Those doors are designed to withhold a rocket launcher."
"Well, your head ain't!" Merle rushed forward, pick axe raised high and heading straight for Edwin.
"Merle! Merle! Back off!" It took Rick, Shane, Dale and T-Dog to get the furious Merle to back away from Edwin and he stalked back to where Daryl was squatting in a corner trying to comfort a quietly weeping Carol and Sophia.
"You do want this." Edwin said to Rick. "Last night, you said that you knew it was just a matter of time before everybody you loved was dead."
"You really said that? After all your big talk?" Shane rested his chin against his hands where he leant over a work partition and looked over at his former partner.
"I had to keep hope alive, didn't I?" Rick turned to look at Lori, seeing the total devastation on her face.
"There is no hope. There never was."
"There is always hope. Maybe not it won't be you and maybe not here, but somebody, somewhere."
"Which part of everything is gone do you not understand?" Andrea retorted and looked up at Rick.
"Listen to your friend. She gets it. This is what takes us down. This is our…extinction event."
"This isn't right! You can't just keep us here!" Carol cried out in despair, hugging Sophia to her chest and exchanging a long glance with Daryl.
"One tiny moment, a millisecond. No pain." Edwin leant over the desk and looked over at the crying Carol who had collapsed against Daryl's side unable to look at Edwin any longer. Daryl looked down at Carol and then Sophia and raised furious eyes to the other man.
"Sophia doesn't deserve to die like this! None of us do!" Sophia crawled off of Carol's lap and into Merle's waiting arms. He hugged the little girl close to his chest and smoothed her hair away from her hot, tear stained cheeks. Carol turned her head into Daryl's shoulder and let her angry tears soak into his shirt.
"Wouldn't it be kinder, more compassionate to hold your loved ones and wait for the clock to run down?" Edwin kept his voice light and his words soothing in an attempt to make everyone see that his was the most sensible option. The sound of a cocked gun soon became apparent that Shane did not share his opion.
"Now you open that door or I'm gonna blow your head off! You hear me?"
"Brother, this is not the way! You do this and we'll never get out of here." Rick whispered calmly in Shane's ear, attempting to talk him out of making a really bad decision.
"Shane, you listen to him!" Lori hissed over.
"If he dies, we all die!" Rick tried again to get Shane to put the shotgun down, Shane roared loudly and pressed the barrel right up against Edwin's face before whirling around to shoot out the workstations around the room.
"Shane!" Rick wrestled Shane for the gun, trying to stop him before he accidently hurt someone; he could see the hot mask of fury clouding his friend's eyes and knew that Shane could see nothing but the red blaze of anger. Rick managed to get the gun away and slammed Shane down to the ground with the butt of the weapon.
"Are you done now? Are you done?"
"Yeah, I guess we all are." Shane replied despondently, looking up at Rick from the floor.
"I think you're lying." Rick stated to Edwin after a moment.
"What?"
"You're lying. About no hope. If that were true, you'd have bolted with the rest and taken the easy way out. You didn't. You chose the hard path. Why?"
"It doesn't matter."
"It does matter. It always matters." Rick crouched down to catch Edwin in the eye. "You stayed when the others ran. Why?"
"Not because I wanted to. I made a promise. To her." Edwin pointed a finger at the darkened screen of the monitors. "My wife."
"Test Subject 19 was your wife?" Lori asked, horrified at the thought that he would have made himself watch the deterioration of a loved one; knowing that there was nothing he could do to prevent the end result.
"She begged me to keep going as long as I could. How could I say no? She was dying." Edwin looked over to where Merle had resumed trying to break his way through the steel door with the pick axe. "It should have been me on that table. It wouldn't have mattered to anyone. She was a loss to the world. Hell, she even ran this place – I just worked here. In our field she was an Einstein! Me? I just…Edwin Jenner. She could have done something about this. Not me."
"Your wife didn't have a choice. You do. That's…all we want. A choice. A chance." Rick tried again to make Edwin change his mind and release the door locks.
"Let us keep trying as long as we can." Lori pleaded and Edwin felt his resolve falter at the look in her eyes.
"I told you topside's a lockdown. I can't open those." Edwin brushed past Rick and headed over to his workstation to swipe his key card against the reader. The door slowly rose open and Merle shouted at everyone to clear the room.
"Come on, let's go!"
"Move it! Move it! Move it!" T-Dog herded everyone up the ramps at a fast pace and Lori urged Carl to stick to her side, no matter what.
"There's your chance," Edwin said, gesturing at the open door. "Take it."
"I'm grateful."
"The day will come when you won't be." Rick held out his hand and Edwin shook it slowly before pulling the other man close and whispering something in his ear. Rick went pale at the other man's words and caught his gaze as Edwin slowly pulled back. He nodded his head in understanding and stepped away to make his way to the exit.
"Hey! We've got four minutes left! Come on!" Glenn yelled from the top of the ramp; knowing that they still had to make their way up five levels and through the top level doors until they reached freedom.
"Let's go! Let's go, Jacqui!" T-Dog wrapped his arm around Jacqui's waist and was surprised when she pulled back and shook her head in denial.
"I'm staying! I'm staying, sweetie."
"But that's insane!" T-Dog came down the ramp a few paces and placed his hand on Jacqui's arm.
"No, it's completely sane. For the first time in a long time. I'm not ending up like Jim and Amy. There's no time to argue. And no point, not if you want to get out. Just get out. Get out!" Shane looked over and passed Daryl's crossbow over to Rick and made his way down the ramp to where T-Dog was pleading with Jacqui not to stay.
"Hey, Dog. Come on, man. Come on! Let's go, let's go!" He grabbed T-Dog by the arm and pulled him up the slope. Dale watched as Jacqui stepped back into the room and raised an eyebrow over to Andrea.
"I'm staying too." She announced softly, having made up her mind as soon as she saw Jacqui was staying behind.
"Andrea, no!" Dale pleaded and turned to wave the others to continue without him. "Just go! Go!" He crouched down before Andrea and clasped her hands tightly. "You can't! This isn't what Amy would want for you!"
"She's dead," Andrea replied, refusing to meet Dale's gaze, "And you need to leave."
Meanwhile the rest of the group had raced up the five stairwells; Daryl carrying Sophia on his back and Merle with Carl on his. They reached the lobby and set the children down by the internal staircase.
"Daryl!" Shouted Shane, as he tossed him the pick axe and both men started pounding against the large glass plated windows. Even a steel frame chair tossed at the window failed to even make a crack. In desperation, Shane loaded his shotgun and emptied the full chamber straight at the glass. "Jesus!" He hissed as the glass refused to break.
"Rick, I have something that might help." Carol rose to her feet and scrambled about in her purse. "Carol, I don't think a nail files gonna do it." Shane muttered sarcastically as Carol walked toward Rick holding out something in her hand.
"The first morning you came, when I washed your uniform? I found this in your pocket." She opened her hand to reveal a hand grenade that Rick had removed from the tank in Atlanta.
"I think I could kiss you right now," Rick exclaimed as he took the grenade from her hand. A low grumble from the corner had him looking over to see both Dixon boys wearing an expression that clearly read 'back off, or else'. He warned everyone to stand back and waited until everyone was under cover before he set it against the window and pulled the pin.
"Oh Shi…"Rick dived for cover as the glass exploded, sending him clear across the lobby.
Back in the main room, Dale took a seat on a rolling chair across from Andrea and stated – "Okay, you win."
"What are you doing?" Andrea looked up as Dale wiped his hand across his nose and sniffed loudly.
"I said, okay."
"Don't pull this, Dale." Andrea shook her head at the older man, not wanting him to throw his life away because of her.
"I'm not pulling anything! If you're staying, I stay, too. He's right. We know what's waiting for us out there. I don't want to face it alone." Dale finished talking and looked away from Andrea, trying to control his tears.
"Dale…." Andrea whispered, overcome with the thought that this kind and caring man would be willing to sacrifice his life for her. "Get the Hell out! I don't want you here!"
"Too bad, you don't get to do that, to come into somebody's life, make them care, and then just check out!" Dale blustered loudly and Andrea dropped her gaze to her knees as Dale continued more softly, "I'm staying. The matter is settled."
Rick and the others raced across the grassy courtyard of the complex; taking down the few Walkers that littered the area, trying to make their way to the RV and jeep. They clambered inside the various vehicles; Rick jumped into the driver's seat of the RV with Glenn, Lori, and Carl piling into the back. Sophia had refused to let go of Merle's hand and he simply swept her up and plunked her in the middle of the bench seat of Daryl's truck; with his bike strapped to the back as Daryl hopped in the driving seat of Carol's Cherokee and started the engine with a roar. T-Dog had his church van whilst Shane swung himself into his little jeep, throwing the shotguns in the back. Rick was about to lead the convoy out of the complex when Lori suddenly pointed at something out of the window.
"Wait! They're coming!" Rick peered through the side window as they saw Andrea and Dale carefully climbing through the shattered glass of the lobby and racing through the fallen Walkers to reach the vehicles before the building exploded.
Back in the main room, Edwin watched the video feed from the entrance and muttered in surprise. "They got out!" He turned to Jacqui and they clasped hands as the numbers on the clock continued to count down; sixteen, fifteen, fourteen…
Rick blasted the horn in warning as his watch told him that the time was up.
"Dale get down!" He screamed through the window and Dale pulled Andrea behind a wall of sandbags. "Everyone in the back! Get down!" Rick herded his family into the back of the RV as Merle and Daryl threw themselves over the Peletier females in order to keep them from seeing what was happening in front of them. A huge wall of fire shot out of the windows with a roar and a spread across the parking lot in an intense wave of heat.
After the initial burst, Dale peeked his head above the sandbags and wrenched Andrea to her feet. Glenn threw open the RV's door and Dale pushed Andrea inside before climbing aboard himself. Rick slowly turned the RV around and the other's followed suit, everyone's eyes pulled back to the black cloud of smoke drifting over to block out the sun. They didn't know where they were heading; there had been no time to make any decisions – they just drove.