Longest chapter so far.
Lily Sullivan and so are the episode edits. Everything belongs to Frank D.
"Where were you this morning?" Carol asked when Lily entered the room.
"Asleep. Some of you had a hard time finding your rooms on your own last night so I had to help. Hey, didn't one of you actually come in my room last night and throw up in the toilet?"
"That would be him," T-Dog smiled pointing at Glenn who was moaning as he leaned over a bowl of cereal.
"You should be drinking water," she told Glenn as she set a glass of it before him.
"She's nice to everyone, Daryl," Carl said to him when he entered the room referring to the comments made last night about Daryl's personality change toward Lily.
"Yeah, whatever." She pushed her glass of water over in front of Daryl when he sat because he might have hid his hungover well, but she could still tell.
She had just sat down to eat when the group was following Jenner into the main control room. Taking her plate of eggs and bacon with her she followed them into the other room.
"Vi, show it TS-19 please."
"Playback of TS-19."
On the giant screen scans were projected to show us what he wanted.
"Few people ever got a chance to see this. Very few."
"Is that a brain?" Carl asked when the picture fully developed.
"An extraordinary one. Not that it matters in the end. Take us in for EIV."
"Enhanced Internal View."
The brain had lit up and balls of light were shooting all around the neurons in the brain. "What are those lights?" Shane asked.
"It's a person's life," Jenner responded. "Experience, Memories. It's everything. Somewhere in all that organic wiring, in all those ripples of light, is you-The thing that makes you unique and human."
"You don't make sense ever?" Daryl asked.
"Those are synapses, electric 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 it is, a vigil?" Rick asked.
"Yes, or rather the playback of a vigil."
Andrea wanted to know if the person had died.
"Yes. Test subject 19. Someone who was bitten and infected...and volunteered to have us record the process. Vi, scan forward to the first event."
The brain on the screen now was not blue like it had been but a fading blue with what looked like tree roots of red branching out from the neck.
"What is that?" Glenn exclaimed.
"It invaded the brain like meningitis. The adrenal glands hemorrhage, the brain goes into shut down, then the major organs. Then death. Everything you ever were or ever will be...gone."
"Is that what happened to Jim?" Sophia asked her mother.
"Yes."
Jenner looked over at Andrea who had been holding back tears.
"She just lost somebody two days ago," Lori told him. "Her sister."
"I lost somebody too. I know how devastating it is. Scan to the second event. The resurection times vary wildly. We had 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 brain on the screen was full of those black roots which now shot red synapses instead of blue. Nothing like it was before.
"It restarts the brain?" Lori asked.
"No, just the brain stem. Basically it get them up and moving."
"But they're not alive?" Rick asked.
"You tell me."
"It's nothing like before. Most of the brain is dark."
"Dark, lifeless, dead. The frontal lobe, the neocortex, the human part doesn't some back. The you part. Just a shell, riven my mindless instinct."
Lily saw a solid white mass move into the top of the screen, but she could not turn away fast enough before the bullet passed through the test subjects brain.
"God. What was that?" Carol asked.
"He shot his patient in the head," Andrea told her. She would know better than the rest of them because she'd done it to her own sister.
"Vi, power down the main screen and the workstations."
"You have no idea what it is, do you?"
"It could be microbial, viral, parasitic, fungal."
"Or the wrath of God?" Jacqui questioned.
"There is that."
"Somebody must know something." Andrea approached Jenner. "Somebody somewhere."
"There are others, right? Other facilities?" Carol asked.
"There may be. People like me."
"But you don't know? How can you not know?"
"Everything went down. Communications, directives- all of it. I've been in the dark for almost a month."
"There's nothing left anywhere? Nothing?" Andrea asked. "That;s what you're really saying right?"
"Man, I'm gonna get shitfaced drunk again," Daryl commented rubbing his face.
Lily chuckled at his comment.
"What's so funny?"
"You're a funny drunk."
"Dr. Jenner," Dale asked before Daryl could scold her. "I know this has been taxing and I hate to ask one more question, but... that clock has been counting down. What happens as zero?"
"The basement generators-they run out of fuel." Jenner walked off.
"Then what?" Rick asked. "Vi, what happens when the power runs out?"
"When the power runs out, facility wide decontamination will occur."
Everyone went back to their rooms with the exception of the men who ran throughout the facility trying to find more fuel.
The air stopped in Lily's room and she knew the worst was coming. She slipped out of her room and into Daryl's without being seen.
"How you know which room was mine?" he asked looking at her with curiosity.
"You brought me in here last night." He raised an eyebrow questioningly. "Is your air off too?"
"Yeah, why?" She sighed roughly. "This is what you were talking about isn't it?" The fear behind her eyes was more than enough response.
Jenner could be heard walking by in the hall on the other side of the door. Daryl took her hand leading her out to the hall quickly.
"Doc. What's goin' on here?"
"The wing is shutting itself down."
"What do you mean shutting itself down? How can a building do anything?"
"You'd be surprised."
"Jenner what's happening?" Rick asked him when his group rejoined the others.
"The system is dropping all the nonessential uses of power. It's designed to keep the computers running until the last possible second. That started a we approached the last half hour mark." The group followed him until he reached the computers. "It was eh French."
"What?" Andrea asked.
"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 to the end. They thought they were close to a solution."
Jacqui piped up. "What happened?"
"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?"
Lily sank to the ground when the half hour alarm started blaring.
"30 minutes to decontamination," Vi announced. Lily threw her hands to her ears.
Rick shouted for everyone to go get their things because they were going to break out. They turned around to go get their things before escaping the CDC. Shouting ensued and doors closed sealing them in.
"I can't die like this," Lily whispered curling herself into a ball. "I've seen too much. Been through too much to die like this."
"What happens in 28 minutes?" Rick asked loudly.
"H.I.T.s. High-impulse thermobaric fuel-air explosives consist of a two stage aerosol ignition the 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."
"The air will catch on fire."
"We have to leave!"
"That door was designed to withstand a rocket launcher," Jenner told Daryl as he threw his axe against it.
"Well your head ain't!" He charged Jenner with the axe in his hands. Dale, Rick, and Lily threw themselves in between him and Jenner. The head of the axe came down upon Lily's arm slicing it open.
The door opened and everyone ran towards it.
She remained stationary trying to tie a knot over the wound.
"My daughter doesn't deserve to die like this!" Carol cried.
"Come on!" Daryl shouted.
Jacqui turned back to join Jenner and gave Lily a look which said I wouldn't blame you if you joined me. Lily'd been through quite a bit but never considered killing herself and was insulted someone would think that was the only way out. The door was opened. Despite the counting down of the clock, Lily began to walk over to her to tell her suicide was not the way when she was lifted from the ground. The sleeveless shirt could only belong to one person.
"Put me down!"
Daryl followed Rick to the entrance where he placed Lily on her feet. Immediately, she hit him.
"What was that for?"
He shook her in response instead of hitting her. "I told you I hate being hit! Don't ever do that again!"
"Why did you pick me up? I didn't ask to be pulled out of here!"
"Glenn! Hold onto her!" Daryl shouted forcing Lily to her knees and wrapping her arms around her for Glenn to grab. Glenn did as ordered and held onto her as Daryl ran forward to break the windows so they could escape.
"Get down!" Rick shouted throwing a grenade at the window. Daryl ran back and threw her and Glenn to the ground to shield them from the shattering window.
"Why you son of-"
"Go on, say it! I dare ya to say it!"
The window burst into a million pieces.
"You stupid hick!"
"Don't you ever call me that! Ya hear?"
"Then what will you do about it?"
"Come on, Daryl!" Glenn shouted urgently. With an angry grunt, Daryl picked up the fighting Lily again and ran outside diving behind a sand bag wall and pinning her down. She fought with all her strength to get up but he was just too strong for her.
"Get off me," she sighed on the verge of tears.
"Cry then. But I'm not letting you kill yourself."
"You thought I was trying to kill myself?"
There was a pause. "Weren't ya?"
"NO!"
The building exploded as the two wrapped themselves around the other.
Lily remained curled on the ground after the blinding flash of light and the deafening explosion with her hands over her ears. Daryl reached a hand down to help her up but she ignored it and got up on her own. The heat of the explosion finally drew Lily's attention. When the sight of the burning building reached her eyes she was forced to look away.
"How could you think I could let myself die like that?"
"It was a way out that didn't require being shot or being eaten. Options are minimal these days."
"I gave you my promise! I gave you my promise. Now you have to let me prove it to you. You have to trust me." Lily then walked off to take her seat in the truck. Before she reached the truck she found herself against the ground.
END SEASON 1