TS-19 PART 3

Natasha reached into the darkness and flipped on the lights for the stairwell. She descended down, deep into the CDC with four of the survivors trailing behind her, in search of the generator and hopefully some answers that Jenner left behind when he walked away from them back in the computer room.

"Decontamination? What does that mean?" Glenn asked.

Shane shrugged his shoulders. "I don't like the way Jenner clammed up. The way he just wandered off like that."

It was clear among everyone that this situation had gotten a little worse, and not knowing what was going on or what Jenner was planning was making everyone nervous. Natasha knew that the doctor was lying. His eyes had a habit of shifting around the room and never truly looking at anyone unless he thought up a believable enough answer. His speech pattern was strange too. Every word he said sounded forced and robotic. Natasha only knew that though because she saw people act that way when the panic first began. It was like the body was there but the mind wasn't anymore.

"What's wrong with him? Seriously, man. Is he nuts, medicated, what?" T-Dog said and stopped behind the survivors once they reached the last floor.

"Have you seen the way he acted?" Natasha cocked a brow while looking over her shoulder.

"Like what? Nuts?"

Natasha scoffed at T-Dog's bluntness and shook her head. "No, no. I've seen nuts. That ain't it. What Jenner's doing is acting like a robot. It's like he's reading off a scrip he had played out in his head over a thousand times. I think he just...checked out from reality a long time ago. If you know what I mean."

Rick walked up to a map mounted on the wall but did take Natasha's words into consideration. "I think you might be onto something," he said, briefly scanning over the map before locating where the generator room might be. "Should be somewhere around here." He gestured to T-Dog and Glenn. "Check that way. Shane. Tasha." He ushered Shane and Natasha to follow him while the other two went off searching in the other direction.

The three of them walked around the utility room for a couple of minutes, looking around until they found what looked to be a generator. It was hooked up to a barrel with a hose running through it, making a strange rattling noise like it was barely working and just struggling to keep going.

"That doesn't sound good." Natasha walked over to the fuel gauge and looked down. "It's nearly empty too. Probably just running on fumes now."

Rick tested the barrel by shaking it back and forth. "You're right. It's empty."

The three of them jumped when the lights above flickered for a moment before dying. Different lights soon came on a second later.

"Emergency lighting on," Vi announced.

"What the hell is this?" Shane exclaimed.

Glenn and T-Dog came running back down the hall and stopped when they met up with everyone else.

"Hey, you guys kill the lights?" Glenn asked.

"Nah, it just went out," Shane said.

Natasha gestured back from where they just came from. "Find anything back there?

T-Dog nodded his head and looked grim. "Yeah, a lot of dead generators and more empty fuel drums than I can count."

Natasha bit down on her lips and looked back over to the barrel that the generator was hooked up to. "Seriously? Is this really the last one?" She looked back up at everyone who all shared the same concerned expression. "We gotta get back up there. I got a bad feeling."


Rick, Shane, Natasha, Glenn, and T-Dog all ran back to the main computer room just as the rest of the survivors stepped out of their rooms and followed after Jenner, bombarding him with questions of what was going on and why the lights were out. Jenner was stoic though and kept most of the answers to himself. He was dressed sharply in a lab coat and tie and had a half-drunk bottle of wine in his hand that he took from Daryl.

Lori looked over and saw Rick and his team emerge from the back stairwell. "Rick? Natasha?" she called out.

Rick gave her a motion to wait and quickly rushed over to Jenner with everyone trailing behind him. "Jenner, what's happening?" he demanded.

"The system is dropping all the nonessential uses of power," Jenner answered back, robotically as he always did. "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." he said and gestured to the large clock that was nearing its end. He paused for a minute on the steps and took one last drink from the bottle before handing it back to Daryl who angrily snatched it back. "It was the french," he said while turning to Andrea.

She looked puzzled for a moment. "What?"

"They were the last ones to hold out as far as I know. While our people were bolting out the doors and committing suicide in the hallways, they stayed in the labs till the end. They thought they were close to a solution."

"What happened?" Jacqui asked.

"The same thing that's happening here. No power grid. Ran out of juice. The world runs on fossil fuel. I mean, how stupid is that?" His lips turned up into a cocked smile as a snicker escaped.

Natasha inched close to Rick and nudged him in the side with her elbow. "Rick...something ain't right. We need to go. Now." She can't read Jenner's mind but she can read the room and the severity it was under. It was everyone's natural survival instincts flaring up at that moment, telling them in no uncertain terms that they needed to leave. Getting answers didn't matter anymore. "I don't know what's going on...but I don't want anyone here to figure it out the hard way," she growled through her teeth.

Rick immediately picked up on the seriousness in her voice and didn't question it. "Alright...alright." He patted her on the shoulder and turned to everyone. "Lori, grab our things. Everybody, get your stuff. We're getting out of here now!"

Everyone moved at once and headed towards the door just when a loud, emergency siren began to go off that froze them stiff. The clock struck the 30-minute mark which caused instant panic in everyone. All except Jenner though who calmly walked over to a security panel, punched in a few numbers and turned the blazing alarm off.

Natasha felt her stomach drop as her face became pale. "What are you all standing there for? Get your stuff and get out! Now!" she snapped when she noticed that no one was moving.

Jenner punched in another code into the security panel and the sliding door that led out of the CDC suddenly began to close. Rick ran for the door but it was already secured, locking them in. It took everyone a second to realize as their faces turned as white as a sheet.

"Did you just lock us in?" Glenn asked. "He just locked us in!"

Jenner sat down at his computer station and began to broadcasts on the monitor. "We've hit the 30-minute window. I am recording," he said.

"You son of a bitch!" Daryl ran at Jenner with his bottle raise like he was going to smash the whole thing over his head. "You locked us in here!"

Rick yelled urgently back to them. "Shane! Shane! Natasha!"

Daryl tried to grab Jenner but Natasha was faster and moved between them to stop him from doing anything. Daryl hesitated just long enough for Shane to grab him and pull him away. The two struggled with each other for a while as T-Dog kept Daryl's hand up and stopped him from throwing the bottle at either Jenner or Natasha.

"Jenner," Rick matched back over to them, "open that door now," he demanded.

"There's no point," Jenner argued. "Everything topside is locked down. The emergency exits are sealed."

"Well, open the damn things," Daryl shouted.

"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."

Rick's face started to run red with anger and agitation. "What is? What happens in 28 minutes?" Jenner didn't answer him and Rick was over it. He was tired of him trying to sneak his way around everyone's questions. "What happens in 28 minutes?!" he shouted.

"You know what this place is?!" Jenner suddenly shot up from his chair and screamed in Rick's face. "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 screeched until he was red in the face and short of breath. It took a moment for him to collect himself before he sat back down at his station. No one said a word to him after that. "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."

Natasha stepped up to Jenner and crossed her arms over her chest. "H.I.T.s? What is that?"

"Vi, defin-"

"No," Natasha abruptly cut in. She grabbed a nearby chair and rolled it over and sat down in front of him. "Have the decency...to answer the question yourself for once. I wanna hear it from your mouth only and no one else's," she said with her sharply dangerous eyes cutting through him like a knife.

Jenner's words momentarily got caught in his throat that he had to clear up with a small cough. He nervously looked away like he always did before finally speaking the truth. "It's, uh...high-impulse thermobaric fuel-air explosive. It consists of a two-stage aerosol ignition that produces a blast wave of significantly greater power and duration than any other known explosive except nuclear," he explained, much to the horrified gasps of everyone in the room.

Natasha was still somehow able to stay stoned-face through all this, yet there was a tinge of fear that fluttered across her eyes and displayed in her voice. "It sets fire to the air..." she said in a single breath.

"No pain," Jenner said in an eerily soft voice. "An end to sorrow, grief...regret. Everything."

Panic ensured after that as the survivors tried to get the security door open through any means necessary. Both Daryl and Shane began to swing at it with an axe to get it open. Children were crying now and the only thing their mothers could do was hold their babies, praying for a miracle as the clock continued to tick away, burning the minutes they couldn't afford to lose.

Natasha pressed her hand against one of her ears to try and drown out the disheartening sound of an axe chipping against a reinforced door. She turned her eyes up at the clock and felt her stomach rock back and forth when she saw that they only had less than fifteen minutes. She took a deep breath and pulled her face into her hands and tried to focus her mind on staying calm, yet even that natural skill was beginning to dwindle under the stress.

Jenner looked down at Natasha's stressful state and reached his hand out, hesitating before patting her shoulder. "You should've left well enough alone it would have been so much easier," he said in a less robotic voice, trying to sound more sincere now.

Natasha instantly tensed up and slowly lifted her head. "Easier for who?" she said in a deep growl. It rumbled throughout her body and caused Jenner to lift his hand out of caution.

"All of you. You..." he said, gesturing to her, "you know what's out there more than anyone in this room right now. You saw it with your own eyes. Do you really want to go on like this? Living a short brutal life with an agonizing death."

Natasha scoffed at him and leaned back in her chair. "Don't pull that card with me. Don't you dare. This isn't about what's out there."

Shane came back over to them a few moments later. "Can't make a dent," he said, a little winded from swinging the axe so many times.

"Those doors are designed to withstand a rocket launcher," Jenner said.

"Well, your head ain't!" Daryl shouted and came around the corner fast, holding the axe above his head like he was going to strike down Jenner. He was intercepted quickly though and held back by the guys before having the axe ripped from his hands.

Natasha gestured over to Rick and gave him a signal for everyone to leave her and Jenner alone for a second. He agreed to her request and guided everyone away so they could have some privacy. They just went back to trying to get the door open in any way they can as the clock ticked on.

Natasha waited a minute to breathe confidently again and compose herself before turning back to Jenner. She stared at him silently, studying him with her eyes that seem to know more than what anyone could ever say to her personally. "The patient, test subject 19...was it someone you once knew?"

Jenner audibly flinched at the sudden calmness in her voice that wasn't there before. "You...are surprisingly observant," he said slowly.

"You tend to meet over a hundred different kinds of people when being in foster care and living on the streets. I became pretty observant of people around me during my teenage years. I had to get smart fast and survive somehow," she shrugged before noticing a picture on his desk. A picture of a woman smiling in a frame. "Who's that?" she reached up and pointed, not before remarking an odd shift in Jenner's eyes as he moved around uncomfortably in his chair. "Your wife?"

"Nat, step back!" Shane's voice suddenly boomed across the computer lab. He marched over to them while loading his shotgun. "Whatever you're trying to do ain't working," he said.

Natasha's eyes went wide with fright and she immediately sat up. "Rick? Rick!" she shouted and stood between them as Rick rushed over to try and stop them. It didn't work though and Shane roughly shoving her aside and made her fall over. "Rick!"

"Shane, no!" Rick tried to intercept Shane but he was pushed away.

Shane held up his shotgun and pointed it right at Jenner's face. "Open that door or I'm gonna blow your head off. Do you hear me?" he growled

Rick tried to reason with him. "Brother, brother, this is not the way you do this. We will never get out of here."

"Get the gun out of his hand!" Natasha shouted while rushing up from the floor. She grabbed the barrel in the nick of time and pushed it to the side just as Shane pulled the trigger, blasting a computer to pieces beside them. "Rick, grab it!" she shouted over the sharp ringing in her ears.

Rick quickly jumped into action and wrestled with Shane for the gun, shoving each other for a bit before he finally got the upper hand. He smacked the butt of the gun against Shane's head and threw an elbow into his shoulder. Shane fell hard against the ground and just laid there.

"Are you done now? Are you done?" Rick demanded threateningly.

"Yeah, I guess we all are," Shane spat.

Rick finally lowered the gun and looked over at Natasha. She was smacking the palm of her hand against her ear to try and get the ringing to stop. He motioned towards her to see if she was alright, to which she responded back by pointing a finger at the picture on Jenner's desk.

"He's lying...but mainly to himself," she said. "That's what I think, at least."

Jenner looked up at that. "What?"

"Your wife was the patient, was she?" Natasha said confidently and sat back down in front of him, the ringing in her ears slowly going away. "I think...I'm beginning to understand where all this is coming from."

Jenner looked stunned and fumbled on his words, but there was no way around the question anymore. There was no doubt anywhere in Natasha's eyes. She already knew. "I...I chose the hard path...because I made a promise to her," he finally confessed, the reason why he stayed, the reason why he endured all this time...alone...by himself. "She begged me to keep going as long as I could. How could I say no? She was dying. It should've been me on that table. I wouldn't have mattered to anybody. She was a loss to the world. Hell, she ran this place. 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."

Natasha didn't pay any more attention to the clock and made sure to keep her focus solely on him. "I guess...we finally reached the end, huh?" She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. "You did all you can, and that's all we can really hope for in the end. The world's gone, yeah...but we still haven't lost everything. We still have...we still have our humanity, the ability to make a choice. Not the hard one...but the right one. You can't take that away from us."

Jenner swallowed hard and turned away in his chair. He couldn't deny that she was genuine in every sense of the world though. Her kindness was warm and her words were strong. It's been far too long since he heard someone talk like that before...but it was a comforting thought, and he believed what she said. "I told you topside's locked down. I can't open those." He got up from his chair and headed over to a security panel. Everyone watched with hopeful eyes as he punched in a code...and the door finally opened up.

Daryl stopped hitting the door with his axe once it opened. "Come on!"

Everyone began to move at once and didn't waste another second standing around with less than 10 minutes on the clock remaining.

"There's your chance. Take it." Jenner said as Natasha stood up from her chair.

She was about to head for the door but quickly turned back to Jenner and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Let you know...I'm not stupid. I know I'm gonna die out there. Be it by someone else's hands or by my own. At least I have choices," she said with a sincere and unshaken voice. "Thank you."

"Yeah. Just...good luck."

Natasha tore away from him and jogged up the ramp with some of the survivors.

"I'm grateful," Rick said to Jenner.

"The day will come when you won't be," he said solemnly but offered his hand out. Rick took it but was pulled in close and had something whispered in his ear. Rick's eyes went wide but he didn't say anything as Jenner pulled away from him.

"Hey," Glenn called back to him, "we've got four minutes left! Come on!"

T-Dog began to lead Jacqui towards the door. "Let's go. Let's go."

"No no. I'm staying," she said and pulled away from him suddenly. "I'm staying, sweetie."

T-Dog was taken back. "But that's insane!"

"No, it's completely sane. For the first time in the 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," she said, nearly in tears while shoving his chest. "Just get out. Get out."

Everyone stopped at the door and waited for T-Dog but he didn't move. Shane walked up behind him and grabbed his arm, ushering him out as Jacqui just stood there.

"Dog, come on, man. Come on! Let's go! Let's go!" Shane said and gave him a final push.

Dale looked on in shock and gestured for Jacqui to follow, she only shook her head though and walked away, folding her arms tightly around her as Dale just stood there, unsure of what to do.

The survivors were leaving one by one and only a few stayed behind, waiting for Andrea and Dale to follow.

Andrea didn't move from her spot. "I'm staying too," she said.

"Andrea, no," Dale said as she turned her back towards him and sat down on the ground.

"Dale?" Natasha called back.

Dale looked up at the rest of the survivors who were waiting. "Just go! Go!" he waved them off to leave.

They did as they were told and dashed out of the computer room, leaving three of their members behind for them to make their own choice.


The survivors ran back up-top to the lobby where they saw the early morning signs of daylight right outside the windows.

Glenn quickly went over to the doors and tried to get them open to no avail. It was deadlocked, as Jenner said it was going to be. "Come on! It doesn't work!"

T-Dog looked around for anything that could help and saw a security panel mounted on the wall beside the door. "Wait a minute! Wait a minute!" He rushed over to it and pressed a couple of buttons he thought would work. "Try it! Try it! Try it now!"

While trying the door, Shane and Daryl worked on breaking the glass and were smacking it with two axes they had with them. Swing after swing, nothing was working and there wasn't even a scratch left after nearly wearing themselves out. T-Dog even tried to get it to break by hitting it with a chair.

Natasha took everyone's bags aside and look through them to see if there was anything that could help. At least something stronger than an axe and chair. "This isn't working..." If she had the time, she could probably find an alternate route that could lead them outside. Like through the roof or an air vent. They didn't even have time to put that idea into motion though. They probably had three minutes left to get out of the CDC before it blew. It had to be through the front or they weren't getting out at all. "That glass isn't gonna break anytime soon," she muttered to herself as Shane shot at the glass with a shotgun. Nothing.

"Jesus..." Shane groaned and lowered his weapon.

"The glass won't break?" Sophia cried out.

"They probably had tough glass installed to keep the CDC safe. If it wasn't for that then the freaks outside would have gotten in a long time ago." Natasha said while searching through Carol's bag, not expecting to find anything...till she stopped suddenly and looked up with a bewildered look in her eyes. "Carol..." she said calmly and pulled out what looked to be a grenade. "Why is this in your bag?"

A funny look swept across Carol's eyes. Like she had just remembered it was in her bag. "When I washed Rick's uniform on his first day at camp...I found that in his pocket."

"Just what we need. Rick! The rest of you get behind something!" She raised her voice to alert everyone while tossing the grenade over like it was a baseball. Rick fumbled to grab it as everyone looked on with disbelief before running for cover.

Rick walked over to one of the windows while his hands shook terribly with fear. He held the grenade tightly before yanking the pin, releasing the handle, and just holding it for a second. His mind couldn't keep up with what to do before Natasha's shrieking voice broke him out of his shocked state.

"RUN!"

Rick dropped the grenade and ran as quickly as he could back to everyone. "Oh, shi-" He barely made it out of range before the grenade detonated. The shockwave knocked him off his feet and he crashed to the floor.

Only one of the windows shattered but it was just big enough for them to slip through. Everyone ran out into the courtyard where the undead was wandering, now alert of their presence because of the blast.

"Woman and children stay close to Nat until we get to the cars!" Shane shouted and began to open fire at the walkers limping towards them.

"Natasha. Natasha!" Lori called out frantically. She pulled Carl close to her and kept Carol and Sophia at least at arm's reach.

"I'm right here! Don't worry!" Natasha pushed Lori and them ahead of her and motioned towards the cars that were parked a couple of feet away. "You guys go ahead! I'll make sure nothing follows," she said and lagged behind to pick off any stragglers.

One after another, the survivors branched off to their vehicles and quickly jumped in. Rick sat at the driver's seat of the RV and was fumbling to put the keys in. Natasha was still outside though, waiting by anxiously and staring at the shattered window to see if anyone else was going to come out.

Glenn peaked his head out of the RV and grabbed Natasha's upper arm. "Tasha, come on!" he urged.

"Yeah." She was about to head in when she finally noticed two figures standing by the window of the CDC. Dale and Andrea looked around before jumping down into the courtyard. "Wait wait wait!" she shouted and pointed them out. "They're coming out!"

6...

5...

Natasha ripped herself away from Glenn's arm and ran towards Dale and Andrea. She stopped just before the sandbag wall and reached out the moment the two got close enough. She grabbed their arms and yanked them hard over the side and kept them close to the ground.

4...

3...

"We're not gonna make it out in time! Keep your heads down!" she shouted while using her heavy-duty coat to cover their bodies.

"Guys!" Lori peeked her head out too beside Glenn who looked on in shock. "Natasha!"

"Stay inside and get down!" Natasha screamed back before covering herself too.

2...

1...

Everyone ducked their heads and got down, waiting as heat built up within the CDC before it finally exploded. Fire surrounded the building and the intense blast caused the windows to burst, spilling flames out across the courtyard and setting everything, tanks, cars, trucks, ablaze. The pressure was so great that it made the roof collapse in on itself.

Intense heat filled the air as everyone slowly got up to see the damage once everything was over. They grew pale in an instant when they saw a cloud of pitch-black smoke billow in the air and over the ruined city of Atlanta. The CDC was gone. Nothing but a pile of concrete and metal with flames wrapped around it.

Both Jenner and Jacqui...gone.

Dale helped a stunned Andrea off the floor as Natasha pushed herself up while shaking the dust off her coat. They jogged back over to the RV while Glenn shouted at them to hurry.

"Get it, get in, get it!" he said.

Natasha pushed both Dale and Andrea up into the RV but paused for a moment to look back at the burning remains of the building. She took in the sight with her blazing gunmetal eyes but felt her heart began to quiver with anxiety as she stared on, motionless and in a state of catatonic shock. She reached her hand up to her neck, desperately trying to find her ring for even the slightest bit of comfort. Her fingers glided across the smooth silver polish which set her bubbling nerves to rest...at least for the moment.

"Natasha!" Glenn called out.

"Yeah, yeah. I hear you," she said while slipping her hand away from her ring. Natasha pressed her back against the RV wall for a final moment of peace but muttered to herself in a wistful but regretful tone. "I guess...I won't be following after you just yet...Ben." she said softly before stepping inside and closing the door behind her.


Author's Note:

We're not done yet! Season 1 may be over but I got one more special original chapter for all of you coming up soon. After that, I'll announce the name of the second installment and when it will be posted. So stay tuned!

Natasha wasn't playing around in this chapter, was she. I like that assertive side of her and that sharp mind that makes her capable to easily understand people. Who knows, it might come in handy in the future, hmmm?

I know you all have some questions that went unanswered during the last view chapters, about certain... things happening that Natasha can't explain. Don't worry though. Those questions will be eventually answered!