The next morning I got up and took another shower. By the time I finished and got dressed again, everyone else was already eating breakfast. I walked over to where T-Dog had made powered eggs and fixed myself a plate. Glenn was moaning in pain at the table, asking everyone to never let him drink again. I smirked as Daryl walked over to get himself some breakfast. We made eye contact briefly before I nodded a greeting to him. He nodded right back and made himself a plate of powdered eggs and bacon. I moved away from him and sat down beside Jacqui, who was finishing her own plate of breakfast.
Shane walked in late with three red scratches on his neck. I frowned at it, seeing that the former cop was avoiding everyone's gaze. T-Dog was not as reserved as I was and he simply asked what happened. Shane jerked himself a bit, as if waking up.
"Oh, I must've done it in my sleep." Shane said, averting his gaze to the food.
"Never seen you do that before," Rick said thoughtfully.
"Me either," Shane mumbled, glancing over at Rick's side of the table. Daryl took Jacqui's empty seat beside me and started to shovel the food into his mouth. I raised an eyebrow at him, to which he just snorted.
"Any day could be the last, Yank," He grumbled. I shrugged at his logic and turned my attention back to my own food. We were only alone a few minutes before Jenner came in, fully dressed for the day but still looking extremely tired. A chorus of "mornings" went through the air as he passed our table. I saw Andrea and Dale glance at each other before Andrea stood up to address the doctor.
"Doctor, we didn't come here for the eggs." Andrea said bluntly. Jenner blinked before turning his back on Andrea. I watched in silent amusement as the doctor made her wait so that he could pour a cup of coffee. When he was finished, he turned back to Andrea and sipped his coffee.
"When you're all finished, you can follow me into the lab. I'll explain it all there." Jenner said curtly. I glanced with everyone around the table before we all stood up and Rick motioned Jenner to take us to the lab. Jenner sighed and led the way to an open room with computer monitors formed in a circle. A giant screen was mounted on the wall in front of most of the computers and there was a large clock, counting down. I stepped closer to it and frowned. Jenner stepped up to the front and said, "Vi, give me a playback of TS-19."
"Playback of TS-19." The female robot voice replied. I glanced at Glenn, who shrugged as the giant screen flickered to life and loaded up what looked like a brain. "Enhanced internal view." The screen zoomed in on the brain, revealing hundreds and hundreds of tiny flashing blue lights.
"What are those lights?" Shane asked.
"A person's life," Jenner said, and for the first time he didn't sound tired to me. "Experiences, memories, everything. Somewhere in all that organic wiring, in all those ripples of light, is you. The thing that makes you unique and human."
Daryl snorted from where he was standing in front of me. "You don't make sense,"
Jenner blinked calmly at Daryl. "Those are synapsis. Electric impulses in the brain that carry all the messages. They decide everything a person says, thinks, or does from the moment of birth to the moment of death."
"Death?" Rick repeated. "That's what this is, a vigil?"
Jenner mumbled something before saying, louder, "More of a playback of the vigil."
"This person died?" Andrea asked softly. "Who?"
"Test subject nineteen." Jenner said, sounding tired again. "Someone who was bitten, infected, and volunteered to have us record the process. VI, scan forward to first event!"
"Scanning to first event," VI said.
The brain on the screen zoomed back out so we saw the whole side of it. And suddenly, as it fast-forwarded, we saw a darkness seep up from the brain stem and into the actual brain, turning it black.
"What is that?" Glenn asked, staring at it with a dumbstruck expression.
"It invades the brain like meningitis." Jenner explained. "The brain shuts down, as do the major organs." The brain on the screen went entirely black and the poor figure that had been surrounding the brain stopped shaking. Jenner was staring up at the screen with a distinct sadness on his face. "Then death. Everything you ever were or ever will be, gone."
I heard Sophia's tiny voice from right beside Carol. "Is that what happened to Jim?"
I stiffened a bit and took a few steps away from the group, and my eye caught on the clock again. It was still counting down, and it had reached an hour left. I looked over back at the others; they were all still talking about the test subject. The screen now showed the black brain with red lights jetting from the stem to only one place. The figure around the brain started moving stiffly, that is until a shot of light appeared and a long slash went through the brain.
"He shot his patient," Andrea said softly.
I glanced back over to the clock; it was still going. "Jenner, I hate to keep bugging you with questions, but the clock is counting down. What happens at zero?" I asked.
Jenner blinked at me. "The basement generators run out of fuel."
"And then?" Rick pressed. Jenner didn't answer, he just sat down at his chair. Rick glared at him. "VI, what happens when the power runs out?"
"When the power runs out, facility wide decontamination will occur." VI replied smoothly.
Lori was the first to notice it when the air shut itself off. Jacqui, Lori, Carol, the kids, and I all went back to the lab to see if Jenner knew the answer as to why the air conditioner shut off, but he wasn't there. I walked in front of the women, going straight for the computers.
"Terry, be careful," Carl said quietly from beside his mother. I nodded back at him as I reached Jenner's computer. Did I dare touch it? Before I could even figure out what to do, Jenner marched into the lab with the men and Andrea, talking about how the energy was being prioritized.
We were all gathered back in the lab and Jenner gently moved me aside before punching a few codes into his computer. "The building's designed to keep the computers going until the last possible second. Air and running water would shut itself down around the half hour mark, which is right on time." I glanced up at the clock and sure enough, we were just passing the half hour left. "It was the French."
"What now?" I asked, lost again.
"While everyone was committing suicide in the hallways and leaving, they stayed." Jenner said. "As far as I know, they were the last ones standing."
"What happened?" Jacqui asked.
"Same thing that's happening here." Jenner said.
I started to sense the danger of being here just around the same time Rick did. Our leader turned to his wife almost immediately. "Lori, get your things; everyone, we're getting out of here now!"
Everyone began to move in a rush to get to the door, but just as Daryl reached them, they slid shut, much like the doors we saw when we first came here. This led to panic as everyone turned right back around to where Jenner was standing beside his computer. I felt cold as the realization hit me: we were trapped in here while a countdown escorted us to our death.
"You son of a bitch!" Daryl shouted, charging towards Jenner. Shane hurried to grab him followed by T-Dog. Daryl managed to grasp ahold of Jenner's coat, but he wasn't able to hurt him like he wanted to. It took both Shane and T-Dog to keep Daryl from attacking Jenner like an animal. Sophia started to cry as Carol attempted to calm her. "Open the damn things!"
"I can't control that, the computers do that." Jenner said calmly. "I told you that once those doors closed they wouldn't open again. You all heard me say that." He looked more awake than I had ever seen him. "It's better this way."
"What is?" Rick asked. "What happens in twenty eight minutes?" Jenner didn't answer right away, causing Rick to grab ahold of him to shake some answers out. Jenner threw Rick off of him with great force.
"Do you people know what this place is?" He asked, screaming until he was red in the face. "We protected the public from some very nasty stuff! Weaponized smallpox! Ebola strings that could wipe out half the country! Stuff you wouldn't want to get out ever! In the event of a catastrophic event, like a terrorist attack, for example, HITs are deployed to prevent anything from getting out."
"HITs?" I repeated, my voice shaking. "What are those?"
"VI, define HIT." Jenner ordered, sitting back down in his chair and rubbing his forehead.
"HITs, high-impulse thermobaric fuel-air explosive consists of a two-stage aerosol ignition which produces a blast wave of significantly greater power and duration than any other known explosive except nuclear. The vacuum-pressure effect ignites the oxygen between five thousand and six thousand degrees and is used when the greatest loss of life and damage to structures is desired."
I dropped into a chair and ran my hands through my hair. I could hear Sophia and Carol both crying and I heard Carl whimpering as his mother and father held on tight to each other. Andrea had slid down to the floor and Daryl had ceased his angry pacing to stand perfectly still.
"It sets the air on fire." Jenner said. "No pain. An end to sorrow, grief, regret. Everything."
It was about a few minutes before everyone seemed to get their minds back together. Daryl rushed over to the door and started to throw stuff at it, screaming at Jenner to open it. Carol and Sophia were huddled together on the ground, shaking and crying. Jacqui and Andrea had both remained perfectly still and I had resorted to a pastime of Daryl's, which was pace and pace and pace some more.
Jenner was watching Daryl through narrowed eyes. "Those doors are strong enough to endure a rocket blast."
"You're head ain't!" Daryl screamed and he charged at Jenner but was foiled again by Shane and Rick. Jenner stood up and stared at Rick with his head tilted to the side.
"You want this." Jenner said to Rick. "Just last night you said you knew it was just a matter of time before everyone you loved was dead."
I looked over at Rick, praying to God that what Jenner was saying wasn't true. But judging by Rick's face, it was. Shane glared at Rick. "You said that? After al your big talk?"
"I had to keep hope alive, didn't I?" Risk asked.
"There is no hope." Jenner said simply. "There never was."
"There's always hope. Maybe it won't you, maybe not be here. But somebody somewhere..." Rick said, though he sounded unsure towards the end of his sentence.
Andrea sighed. "What part of 'everything is gone' do you not understand?"
Jenner glanced between Andrea and Rick. "Listen to your friend. She gets it. This is what takes us down. This is our extinction event."
Carol sniffled from over in the corner. "This isn't right. You can't just keep us here. My daughter doesn't deserve to die like this!"
The doctor blinked at her sadly, like he was trying to get her to understand him. "Wouldn't it be kinder, to be more compassionate to just hold your loved ones and wait for the clock to run down?" I heard Daryl hitting the doors again with the fire ax Glenn had found. The sound of a shot gun being loaded filled the air and I looked away from Daryl to see Shane with his gun, hurrying towards Jenner. The former cop pressed the barrel against Jenner's face and screamed when the man refused to let us out.
Shane aimed his gun at the computers and began to fire at random. Everyone ducked down and shielded themselves until Rick managed to knock Shane down, stopping the shots. I got up and looked back at the clock; we had a little over six minutes left.
Once Shane was back on his feet, Rick looked around at everyone. He locked eyes with me before turning back to Jenner. "I think you're lying about there being no hope. Your colleagues took the easy way out and you didn't. You chose the hard path. Why?"
Jenner shook his head. "It doesn't matter now."
"It does matter. It always matters. You stayed when others ran; why?"
The doctor looked up at Rick with sadness burning in his eyes. "Because of her. I made a promise to my wife." He pointed up at the screen where test subject nineteen had been. The hair on my arms stood up straight. "She begged me to keep going as long as I could. How could I say no? It should've me on that table. She was a loss to the world, I just worked here! In our field, she was an Einstein! Me, I'm just Edwin Jenner. She could've done something about this, not me."
"All we're asking for is a chance," Rick pleaded. I heard Daryl pounding at the door again.
"Let us keep trying as long as we can," Lori begged, holding on tight to her son. Jenner took in all of the people surrounding him, and I imagined just how desperate we looked. But what he saw changed his mind as he walked back to his computer and punched in a few buttons, opening the door that Daryl had been trying to hack down.
"I can't open the topside's doors," Jenner said quietly. Everyone made a move to run out. I ran past Jacqui and T-Dog as we got to the ramp leading out of the lab.
"I'm stayin'!" Jacqui yelled at T-Dog. I stopped in my tracks and turned to look back at my friend. T-Dog was silent before he tried to pull her away again. Jacqui looked at the pair of us with tears in her eyes. "There's no time to argue. Just get out, both of you." She pushed T-Dog back and turned her back on us. I glanced at the clock; four minutes.
I grabbed T-Dog's arm and pulled him out of the lab, fresh grief heavy in my chest. We reached the first floor to where Shane and Daryl were trying to bust open the grounds. Shane grabbed his shot gun and shot at the window, but the glass wouldn't break.
"Rick!" Carol called. "I have something that might help!"
"Carol, I don't think a nail file's gone do much good." Shane snapped. Carol ignored him.
"When you first got to camp and I washed your clothes, I found this in your pocket." Carol pulled out a small grenade and handed it to Rick. I remembered the soldier from the tank and called for the others to duck somewhere. Rick ran to the window to pull the pin. As he was running back, the grenade exploded, opening a passage wide open in the window.
"Go!" Rick screamed, leading the way out. I bolted after him and the others. Glenn passed me quickly, his legs faster and longer than mine. I noticed for a spilt second that I was falling behind, but then someone grabbed my wrist roughly and nearly yanked my arm out of my socket as I was pulled faster. Daryl growled at me to keep moving and he tightened his grip on my arm. Everyone dove into the cars and Daryl pulled me into the truck with him. The ground began to shake as it was ripped apart by the explosion. I dove down into the seat and Daryl dove down on top of me. The back of my head was pressed up against his stomach as we heard and felt the explosion.
When everything was settled again, Daryl sat up slowly, letting me up. I saw the fires burning at the CDC and I tried not to think about Jacqui and Jenner. Daryl and I locked eyes and there was a sort of silent conversation going on between us.
"That's the second time you've saved my life," I said quietly.
Daryl snorted and sat up straight. He turned the truck on and we began to drive away from the burning building, leaving it far behind.