As it turned out, Shane wasn't much of a bed mate. He slept on top of the blankets but still managed to hog them and if that wasn't enough, he snored like a bear in hibernation.

Bed mate notwithstanding, Victoria barely slept it a wink anyways.

Every time she closed her eyes, she saw red - it ran like rivers across the blockage, squelched under her boots as she ran, it stuck under her nails, stained her hair, and she could still taste the sick stench of pennies in the hot summer air.

Victoria gathered herself, combing her fingers through her hair with a soft sigh. She didn't want to think about that now.

She pulled on the same jeans and plain white t-shirt from the day before and left a few painkillers on the nightstand for Shane - although, he deserved the hangover.

Victoria couldn't stop thinking about him and Lori. Shane was clearly in love with her, which would explain the longing looks and why she avoided him like the plague. But did Lori feel the same way or was she using him for comfort? Did Rick know? Did the others?

"Enough."

It wasn't her job to play detective anymore. It just wasn't any of her business.

Powered eggs. Teriyaki jerky. Instant coffee, two sugars, hold the cream.

Just like yesterday, the day before that and the last sixty-one days before that, Victoria walked into the cafeteria for breakfast.

The survivors were already enjoying a feast of bacon and eggs - all except Glenn, who was groaning into his greasy breakfast instead.

Victoria made a beeline for the coffeepot, announcing herself with a soft, "Morning."

The group drawled halfhearted greetings, still feeling the aftermath of their celebrating.

"Hey!" T-dog said from behind the stove. "Hope you don't mind." He lifted a sizzling frying pan with a toothy smile, exposing the gap between his white teeth.

Victoria shrugged. "Help yourself, man." She poured herself a styrofoam cup of coffee and jerked her head back to Glenn. "Dude okay?"

"Nah, he's fine." T-dog smirked. "He just needs to get a little breakfast into him!"

Glenn whined in protest.

"Excuse me, Detective Morgan?"

Christ, Victoria couldn't remember the last time someone called her that. She whirled around to Dale and nodded.

"If you don't mind me saying so, you don't sound like you're from around here."

"I'm, like, from the gnarly shores of South Cali, my dude" She flicked her hand, giving them the typical surfer-dude Shaka gesture.

A quiet chuckle rippled among the survivors.

"How'd you find yourself in Atlanta?" Dale wondered.

She took a sip of coffee. It was too early for an interrogation - no matter how polite. "I go wherever the job takes me." Victoria eluded, examining the ragtag group curiously. "Are you all from Georgia?"

Lori answered with a nod. "Almost all of us met on the highway during Atlanta's evacuation, except for a few who came later." She hesitated, her hazel eyes flickering to Andrea before she quietly added, "There was more of us but... we've lost people on the way."

It must have been recent, if the way Andrea cringed into her breakfast was any indication.

"I'm sorry." Victoria said but she knew it offered little. "It never gets easier."

"No." Andrea agreed, lips tugging into a frown, "It doesn't."

Before Victoria could respond, Rick stumbled into the cafeteria looking worse for ware.

"Are you hungover?" Carl asked with a cheeky little grin. "Mom said you'd be."

Rick slouched into the chair next to Lori and flashed his son a weak grin, "Mom is right."

Lori smirked, "Mom has that annoying habit."

Victoria watched the family with curiosity, wondering where Shane fit into it.

"Eggs!" T-dog announced, rounding the counter with a jovial, "Powdered, but I do 'em good!" He dumped the eggs on Glenn's plate and leaned closer to the younger man. "I bet you can't tell but protein helps the hangover."

Glenn whimpered as Jacqui tried to soothe him.

"Where'd all this come from?" Rick asked them, struggling to open a pill bottle from the table. "Help me, please."

His wife easily twisted off the cap and handed it back to her husband. "Jenner."

Victoria was impressed, she half expected to find Edwin slumped over a console with a bullet in that big brain of his.

"He thought we could use it." Lori added, glancing at Glenn with a chuckle, "Some of us, at least."

"Don't ever, ever, ever let me drink again."

Victoria laughed, she had been there more then a few times.

The last survivor to arrive was Shane. If he had a hangover, he didn't show it as he rushed to the coffee pot with a grunted greeting.

With a coy smile, Victoria offered him a cup. "Morning. Sleep well?"

He took the cup without looking at her. "Fine. Sorry about last night."

"Don't worry about it, man."

"About what I said-"

"You were drunk. Consider it forgotten."

Shane looked at her with clear relief. "Thanks"

"Feel as bad as I do?" Rick interrupted from the breakfast table.

"Worse."

"The hell happened to you?" T-dog exclaimed as he passed by Shane. "Your neck?"

Shane turned around and sat at the table with a shrug. "Must've done it in my sleep."

Rick frowned. "Never seen you do that before."

"Me either. Not like me at all."

Victoria caught the stare Shane shot Lori. The mother looked away and glared at the bacon in her hand before dumping it back on her plate.

Well, that answered that question. But why did Lori attack Shane?

"Good morning, everyone." Jenner appeared in the doorway, looking marginally better then the day before.

"Nice to see you finally showered, Jenner."

"And good morning to you too, Victoria."

Dale shifted around, facing the scientist and detective with a stern stare. "I don't mean to slam you with questions first thing..."

"But you will anyways." Jenner chuckled, pouring himself a cup of coffee.

Andrea studied the scientist, lips pressed into a firm line as she said, "We didn't come here for the eggs."

Jenner stood in the middle of the control room as the survivors shuffled around the platform around him. He took a final sip of his coffee before calling out, "Give me playback of T.S nineteen"

"VI, pause." From her workstation behind him, Victoria sighed, "Jenner, dude, I don't think-"

"They need to see it. VI, playback."

"Playback of T.S nineteen." VI echoed.

The terminals whirled to life as the big screen blinked on, broadcasting live x-ray.

With an excited gasp, Carl stepped closer to the railing. "Is that a brain?"

Jenner grinned down at the boy, "An extraordinary one." A shadow of remorse passed his face as the grin slipped. "Not that it matters in the end. Take us in for E.I.V."

"Enhanced internal view."

The video shifted closer until they could see the outline of skull, the brain stems lit up the screen, each flickering with thousands of little blue lights.

Shane slid into the chair next to Victoria, his eyes narrowing at the screen. "What're those lights?"

"It's a persons life." Jenner answered, "Experiences, memories. It's everything. Somewhere, in all that organic wiring, all those ripples of light, is you. The thing that makes you... unique and human."

The hick crossed his arms over his chest, grumbling, "You make sense, ever?"

"Those are synapses, electric impulses in the brain that carry all the messages." Jenner simplified, pointing at the brain, "They determine everything a person says, does or think from the moment of birth to the moment of death."

"Death?" Rick repeated, stepping next to the scientist. "That's what this is - a vigil?"

"Yes. Or, or rather the playback of the vigil."

Andrea flanked Jenner from the left, wrapping her arms around her stomach as she murmured, "This person died - who?"

"Test Subject Nineteen." Jenner said simply. "Someone who was bitten and infected, and volunteered to have us record the process."

Victoria shifted uncomfortable, ignoring Shane's scrutinizing eyes as she moved the chair further from the console. "Jenner-"

"VI. Scan forward to the first event."

"Scanning to first event."

The video was fast-forwarded until the base of the brain darkened, the skull thrashing violently until the lights were swallowed by darkness.

"What is that?" Glenn cried.

"It invades the brain like meningitis. The adrenal glands hemorrhage. The brain goes into shutdown, then the major organs, then death." Jenner paused until the brain was completely dark before continuing, wistful as he murmured, "Everything you ever were, or will be, gone."

Sophia tugged on Carol's sleeve. "Is that what happened to Jim?"

Carol clutched her daughters hand. "Yes."

Andrea tore her eyes away from the screen with a strangled gasp. She braced herself against a console, trying to hold back a sob with a sharp inhale.

Jenner glanced at Andrea, surprised by her outburst.

"She lost somebody two days ago." Lori explained softly. "Her sister."

"I lost somebody too." Jenner leaned over to Andrea. "I know how devastating it is." He faced the screen again with thinned lips, "Scan to second event."

"Scanning to second event."

"The resurrection times vary wildly. We have reports of it happening in as little as three minutes, the longest we heard of was eight hours. In the case of this patient it was two hours, one minute, seven seconds."

The body suddenly jolted, the brain flourishing with a bright, sinister red energy that scattered throughout the stems - it never quite regained its beauty.

Lori gasped, "It restarts the brain?"

"No. Just the brain stem. Basically, it gets them up and moving"

Rick crinkled his eyebrows, "But they're not alive?"

"You tell me."

"It's nothing like before. Most of that brain is dark-"

"Dark, lifeless, dead." Jenner finished for the Sheriff, "The frontal lobe, the neo-cortex, the human part, that doesn't come back - the you part. Just a shell, driven by mindless instinct."

Before the survivors could ask more questions, a foreign object ripped through the brain, tearing it straight down the middle and destroying all the light.

Carol took a step back, "God! What was that?"

"He shot his patient in the head." Andrea answered sharply. "Didn't you?"

Before Jenner could answer, Victoria finally took control of the situation. "VI. Power it down."

"Powering down main screen and workstations"

Everything but the lights flickered off, leaving the survivors in a shell-shocked silence.

Victoria stood as Jenner turned to her, amusement flickering through the misery on his face. "We're done with that." She decided, crossing her arms. "Unless you have anything else you'd like to drag everyone down with?"

Jenner rolled his eyes. "They deserve to know."

Andrea, apparently not done with the interrogation, shot back, "Deserve to know what? Do you have any idea what it is? You don't, don't you?"

"It could be microbial, viral, parasitic, fungal."

"Or the wrath of god?" Jacqui rasped, wiping the tears from her eyes.

"There is that."

"Somebody must know something." Andrea insisted, throwing her hands in the air, "Somebody, somewhere!"

"There are others, right?" Carol interrupted, her mesmerizing blue eyes pleading with Jenner.

Victoria made a sound of uncertainty from her throat that she immediately regretted. All the survivors turned to her with wide eyes.

"You know know?" Rick asked, taken aback as she shook her head. "How could you not know?"

"It's not that easy." Victoria sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Everything went offline, man. Military, the government, even the other facilities - all of it, like dominoes. I haven't heard back from anyone in weeks."

Andrea scoffed, whipping around to Victoria. "So, it not just here?" She barked, her voice cracking as she sneered through more tears. "There's nothing left anywhere? Nothing? That's what you're really saying, right?"

Victoria opened her mouth to tell her exactly what she meant but the words died in her throat.

Her silence unleashed a ripple of anguish that pummeled the survivors.

Even Daryl looked troubled, rubbing his eyes as muttered, "Man, I'm gonna get shitfaced drunk again"

As his fellow survivors came to terms with the end of the world - again - Dale stepped onto the far side of the platform. "Dr. Jenner, Detective Morgan, I know this day has been taxing on both of you and I hate to ask one more question but that clock, it's counting down." He pointed to the wall to the left, where the big, red numbers were flashing 00:59:59. "What happens at zero?"

Victoria let out a strained laugh, rubbing the throbbing space between her brows.

Jenner looked flustered for the first time as the group finally noticed the timer. "The basement generators, they run out of fuel."

"And?" Victoria goaded.

Without another word, Jenner glared at her as he brushed passed the Sheriff and fled the room with his tail tucked between his legs.

Rick turned on Victoria, his eyes narrowed into slits as he demanded,"What happens when the power runs out?"

"VI." Victoria shouted out. "Tell our friends what happens when the power run out."

Above them, the robotic voice crackled. "When the power runs out, facility-wide decontamination will occur"