A/N: To the reviewer known as syneb, I think you missed the point behind John's apparent 'weakness'. The needle is hard enough to penetrate his skin when enough force is put behind it, but here's the thing: Only John is strong enough to actually penetrate his own skin in any way. Even though the 'special metal' is about the hardest substance you can think of in this fic and John's universe, nobody but John himself has the strength to actually pierce his skin or hurt him in any way.
It's a weakness of some sort, you could say, but it was meant to be more of a hidden testament to how strong John truly was among other superhumans. There are those who can hold their ground against him, but there are few who can actually hurt him.
As for the bit about the shelter… yeah, this fic does consider The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct as canon. And in that game, the final showdown happens at the Atlanta Shelter, and considering the size of it, I more than believe that for his power, John alone couldn't stop the walkers, considering how massive the shelter itself was, and the fact that the only thing acting as a barrier was a chain link fence, and considering a herd of walkers could bring down a fence like that, let alone a horde…
Yeah, John's tough and he's strong, but he can't be everywhere at once, and he's not protecting everyone from hordes of zombies coming in all directions in a shelter that massive.
As for the issue with John not jumping to other cities… yeah, you got a point there, can't really say much on that one.
Anyway, I figured I'd clarify a few things, so now, let's get this ball rolling!
John
Damn, that was a good shower.
Though temperature of any kind isn't uncomfortable to me anymore, I can still very much feel hot and cold. And a hot shower is a pleasure that I can always enjoy.
I leave the shower stalls feeling refreshed and clean for the first time in months, and I let out a stretch as I do so.
Unlike the others, I don't exactly have a spare change of clothes, though.
So, for a little more comfort, I've decided to just forego my shirt. Let the comfortable and clean air of the facility rush over my body after the shower, while walking around in my pants and underwear.
It's not like it's gonna hurt anything.
"Hey, kid." Shane says as he pats my back, walking past me. "How's it feel to be safe again?"
I smile at the former cop as I look at him. "I'd say it feels like a million bucks, but money ain't exactly worth shit anymore." I joke.
Shane chuckles at my response. "No, I don't suppose it is." He agrees with a smile, before walking away from me with a wave. "I'll see you later, John. I'm gonna go get some actual sleep."
"See you, Shane." I call after the man.
I turn towards the other end of the hall. The kids got a quick shower and then ran off to the rec room Jenner told them about, and I figure I have nothing better to do for a bit, so we can probably play a few games of something.
Now if only there was enough power to play some video games.
But I don't get the chance to run off down that way, when Jenner suddenly comes from into view from one of the halls down the way, rushing up to me.
"Hey, Jenner." I say to the doctor with a smile. I can not stress it enough, the man is a godsend. "You looking for somebody?" I ask, noticing the way he seems to be in a hurry.
"Yeah." Jenner nods as he stops in front of me. "You."
I can't help but furrow my brow in confusion. "Me?" I ask curiously. "What do you need?"
"Come with me." He says in an urgent tone, though I can hear a small bit of excitement in his voice as he says it. "I need to show you something."
"Okay…" I'm not really sure what he would need to show me. He doesn't know I'm the Juggernaut, and he unknowingly helped me keep that particular secret, so outside of thinking I'm just another superhuman, I have no clue what he could be wanting to show me.
But I follow the man anyway.
He leads me through the halls, and though we pass a few people, he gives them a quick wave and greet as he continues past them, and considering this seems pretty important, I do the same, though I try to make it clear I'm not just brushing them off.
He leads me into the main hub, and he marches up to one of the front computers, towards an absolutely gigantic screen that's simply black right now, unused, and sitting atop the console, I can see a syringe with an odd purple liquid, the blood he took from us, some blood slides and a microscope.
"What's so important?" I can't help but ask once I'm sure we have a little privacy. I'm not trying to sound rude, but considering how excited and urgent he seems, a combination I never would've thought possible, I find myself a little annoyed that I'm in the dark.
"I was checking over the blood I took from all of you, trying to be sure that none of you were gonna turn." Jenner begins, turning to look at me. I figure it best not to question why he did it here instead of in a lab that the facility probably has. "And I found something absolutely unbelievable in yours."
My eyes widen, and as stupid as it sounds, my first thought is that my blood somehow gave away that I'm the Juggernaut.
But he's not done speaking.
"Now, before I continue, there's something you need to know, and I won't lie, it's not gonna be good news." He says as he sits down in the chair in front of a microscope.
I can't help the way I tense up. After things looking up so much for all of us, of course there's bad news.
"Alright, what is it?"
"The virus… it's not passed through the bites." He tells me.
Come again?
Did I hear that right?
"What you mean?" I ask in uneasy confusion. "The bites infect us. It kills us, and then brings us back." I say, though I sound as if I'm trying to convince myself.
Jenner gives me a sympathetic look, before he shakes his head slowly. "I'll… I'll be blunt. Whatever the virus is, it's airborne." He tells me, to my horror. "We're… we're all infected."
"What do you mean?" I ask him, and I admittedly don't understand why he's telling me this, when he should be telling Rick, Shane, or better yet, the entire group.
"The bites act as a trigger. The virus sits dormant inside all of us until activated upon death." Jenner reveals, and my face morphs into one of pure and utter horror.
We're… we're all infected…
We come back no matter how we die?
"The bites… they simply speed up the process, killing the host so that the body can reanimate." He explains to me, and again, I don't know why he's only telling me this.
So I ask him.
"Shouldn't the whole group know about this?" I ask him with a shake of my head, running my hands through my hair as I try to process just what he's telling me. "Shouldn't they know that we return no matter what?"
Jenner is silent for a moment, before he speaks. "Maybe… but I'll leave that up to you to tell them." He says as he averts his gaze.
"So of all of us… You don't go to Rick or Shane, you tell me… why?" I can't help but ask.
I'm completely baffled when Jenner smiles.
"Because I found something." He says, and I'm wondering if he's intentionally doing that to be suspenseful, or just try and build some sort of anticipation in me.
But I'm a little on edge, and more than a little frazzled right now. "What?" I ask him directly.
"When I was checking through the blood, everyone was infected, no different than anyone elses." He tells me as he picks up a blood slide, and inserts into the microscope, before he stands up out of his chair. "Look. This is Jim's blood."
I look at Jenner for a moment, before I decide to indulge him. I take a seat at his chair and turn towards the microscope, leaning down so I can look into it.
What I see is mostly like pictures and blood I'd seen in science class at school before shit went down, with the white and red blood cells. But there's something amiss about it.
There's these little purple dots, scattered through the sample.
The virus.
That's inside all of us?
"So, what am I supposed to be seeing?" I ask Jenner as I lean away from the microscope and look at him.
Instead of answering me directly, Jenner leans down and pulls the blood slide out of the microscope. "Take a look."
I raise an eyebrow, before shaking my head with a sigh and leaning back down into the microscope.
I don't get it.
It looks just like any other blood sample-
Wait a minute.
It looks just like any other blood sample.
Except the virus is in all of us… yet the virus isn't in this sample.
"The virus, that's the purple stuff, right?" I ask, before continuing before he can even answer. "It's not here."
"Exactly." Jenner says as I lean away once more and look at him. And he's got the biggest grin on his face. "It's not there."
Now I'm confused.
Then my eyes go wide as realization strikes me.
"Is that my blood?" I ask him, and he nods quickly.
"Yes." He confirms my question. "And before you ask, it's not because you're a superhuman that you're not infected. Every other superhuman blood sample I've seen is still infected."
"Then why ain't I?" I ask in confusion, shaking my head. "That doesn't make sense."
"It didn't to me at first either." Jenner admits as he picks up the syringe with the purple gunk in it. "This is an extracted sample of the virus, pure and refined for testing." He explains to me as he the blood slide out slightly. "Look back into the microscope."
I can only raise an eyebrow once more at his instruction, but this time I obey without hesitation.
At first, I see nothing but white, which makes sense since the sample isn't in the microscope at the moment.
Then he slides the blood sample back into view, and this time, it's infected with the virus.
For a moment.
Absolute shock floods through me as I watch my white blood cells annihilate in seconds, until the sample is completely virus free once more.
Jenner must notice my expression change, as he begins speaking while I continue to study the blood sample in disbelief. "You're immune system attacks the virus like the threat it is. No one else's does."
I got a pretty good idea of where he's going with this, but I ask anyway. "Are you saying I'm immune?" I ask as I finally turn to look at him once more.
Jenner nods quickly, smiling widely as he points to the blood sample. "I won't lie, that's the first sign of hope I've seen since this damn virus struck, but somehow, your immune system combats the virus at an astounding rate." He tells me as he walks up closer to me. "Your blood may very well hold the key to a cure."
I can't help but smile as I stand to my feet, excitement racing through me. "That's great!" I tell him with a smile. "I'll help however I can."
It's for a moment, the tiniest fraction of a moment, but Jenner's face visibly falls before his excited expression is back once more. "Great." He says. "I'm gonna do a little more research with this, but I'll let you know if there's any way you can help."
I nod, ignoring the way the doctor's face fell for a second, and smile at the man. "Alright." I say, deciding it might be best to leave Jenner to his work for now. "I'm gonna go and occupy the kids in the rec room for a bit, and then probably get some sleep." I say as I pat Jenner on the shoulder before walking past him, out of the room.
I can't help the skip in my step, but before I leave the room, I hear Jenner's voice call out to me.
"Hey, kid?" I turn to look at him when he says it, and he's got a rather… I don't know how to describe the look on his face, honestly. It's like it's a mixture of sympathetic and cautious. "I wouldn't tell anyone yet. I know they need some hope, but you don't want to get their hopes up only for it to turn out this is just another dead end."
I look at him for a moment, taking in his words. Don't tell the others yet? Well… I guess his reasoning makes sense, though I'm not sure why it would matter, since we're finally safe now.
"Sure." I agree after a few moments, before making my way back down the hall, and towards the rec room I was originally going for. I pass by Rick as I go, and he's got a bottle in his hand, but I'm assuming he's going to talk to Jenner.
Glenn
Oh god… why did I have to drink so much?
Hangovers are the worst. It doesn't matter how much you drink, they always suck. A pounding headache and sensetivity to light and sound… god, it hurts.
I'm pretty much slumped over a table. Thanks to Jenner, I at least have something to dull it down a little. T-Dog was already here when I woke up, making some powdered eggs. I suppose it could be worse, but he says he makes them good.
Here's hoping.
Carl and Lori are already here, getting some breakfast. Outside of my own occasional moans of pain, it's relatively silent as T-Dog makes the eggs.
Until Rick walks in.
"Hello." He says, tiredly, and he sounds a little hungover as well, but not nearly as much as I am. "Morning."
"Are you hungover?" Carl suddenly asks, and if I felt better, I probably would've laughed at the kid's question. "Mom said you'd be." He adds as Rick sits down.
"Mom… is right." Rick says a little slowly, amusement in his tone as he glances over towards Carl. I can practically feel the smirk on Lori's face at his words.
"Mom has that annoying habit." She jokes as she chews on a piece of food.
"Eggs!" T-Dog suddenly says, a little too loudly for my liking, though maybe that means the eggs are done if the sound of footsteps from his direction, accompanied by what sounds like the others walking in, are any indication. "Powdered, but I do 'em good. Bet you can't tell." He jokes with a chuckle.
I can only groan in response as I feel a pair of comforting hands on my shoulders as Jacqui leans down, just barely into view from the corner of my eye. And then there's some eggs coming down onto my plate.
"Protein, helps the hangover." T-Dog says, trying to encourage me to eat a little.
"Where'd all this come from?" Rick asks as he holds up a bottle of the pain medicine Jenner gave us.
"Jenner." Lori answers her husband.
"Can you help me, please?" Rick asks as he hands the bottle to Lori, who gladly opens it up for him.
"He thought we could use it." Lori explains as she hands bottle back to Rick, now open. "Some of us, at least."
"I can practically feel her eyes on me with that last remark, but I really don't care enough right now to even say anything back to her.
"Don't ever, ever let me drink again." I groan from the hangover.
"Hey." Shane says as he walks into the room.
"What's up?" John's voice echoes out as well.
John.
In spite of my hangover, I can still feel a little bit of disappointment and frustration with him over his stunt yesterday.
When it came out that he was a superhuman, he let Jenner unknowingly give him an out, an excuse, instead of just telling the truth. Our deal was that if he decided to stay, he'd reveal that he was the Juggernaut, and yet, what does he do? Lies like a dog.
If he wasn't planning on staying with us, he wouldn't have entered the CDC with us, and considering he was about to tear the shutter open yesterday, yes I noticed that, you'd have thought he was ready to tell the truth.
But, it's his secret… and like Jim said, it's not mine to tell.
"Jesus, Glenn, you look like shit." Amy says as she walks into the room, and I can practically feel the grin on her face.
"I feel like shit." I moan in response.
"Had a little too much yesterday, didn't you, Chinaman?" Merle's voice echoes out way to loud for my liking.
I don't even dignify that with a response.
"It'll go away." Jim's voice enters my ears, and I have to admit, I'm a little thankful for his voice, especially since he actually keeps an acceptable level of volume.
"Well, that's what happens when you drink too much." John's voice says as he sits down at the table, and I finally lift my gaze up to glare at him a little. Assuming it's just from the hangover rather than the real reason, he laughs it off.
He's a good kid… but I'm just too irritated with him right now.
Jim's right at least. I can feel the meds kicking in, and mix that with the eggs, and the hangover's dying down a little.
With my head up, I can finally see that everyone has arrived at the table, eager for breakfast. The only one not present is-
"Morning." Right on cue, Jenner speaks as he walks in, greeting us all with a smile.
Echoes of greetings from all of us echo out as the doctor moves to grab a cup of coffee, but Dale seems to be curious about something.
"Doctor, I don't mean to slam you with questions first thing-"
"But you will anyway." Jenner responds with a chuckle.
"Well, no offense meant, sir, but even though we came here for safety…" Jim begins, looking towards the doctor. "We're kind of curious about… what exactly this virus is."
Jenner turns to look at us at Jim's words, and it doesn't escape my attention when he eyes John for a few moments before looking at the rest of us.
"Follow me." He orders us. We all stand and leave the table, and by this point, everyone is present as we follow the doctor through the facility to the big computer room he'd brought us to before. The one where he showed us Vi.
"Vi, give me playback of TS-19." Jenner calls out to the A.I.
"Playback of TS-19." Vi announces through the massive room as the gigantic screen boots to live. It begins loading up something, a video of some kind, and there's different scans of what looks to be a brain loading of in four small squares on the left of the screen, while it looks like it's loading up another bigger one to the right.
"Few people ever got a chance to see this." Jenner tells us in a somber tone. "Very few."
One the right, a bigger image of a brain loads up, and you can faintly see some transparent facial features, but not much else.
"Is that a brain?" Carl asks curiously as he looks at Jenner, who smiles.
"An extraordinary one." Jenner answers with a smile, before it fades from his face, a look of sadness crossing over him. "Not that it matters in the end. Take us in for an E.I.V."
"Enhanced internal view." Vi says as the big scan moves in closer, off to the side of the head, focusing on the brain, and then further inside, if that's even possible. Then we're all watching a bunch of flashing lights running through what looks like a… I wanna say a web of sorts, but I'm not sure that's the propper term.
"What are those lights?" Shane askes curiously, speaking both for himself and anyone else who doesn't know.
"It's a person's life." Jenner answers as he turns towards Shane, and his eyes wander over all of us. "Experiences, memories… somewhere in all that organic wiring, all those ripples of light, is you." He says as he turns back towards the screen. "The thing that makes you unique, and human."
"You don't make sense, ever?" Daryl asks with a raised eyebrow.
"Made sense to me." Amy says, glancing over at Daryl with a smile. Daryl just shakes his head.
"Those are synapses." Jenner says, trying to clarify a little better, though I personally understood the original explanation well enough. "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?" Rick catches onto that part, and admittedly, it's got me a little curious. "That's what this is? A vigil?"
"Yes." Jenner answers with a nod. "Or, rather a playback of the vigil."
"Well that's dark." I hear John mutter under his breath next to me, and I have to say, I agree. This a bit dark for my tastes too.
"This person died? Who?" Andrea asks as she takes a step forward, closer as she studies the video.
"Test Subject 19." Jenner answers, and their's an audible tone of sadness in his voice, though no one questions it. "Someone who was bitten… and infected… and volunteered to have us record the process." He says, glancing towards Andrea for a moment before looking back at the screen. "Vi, scan forward to the first event."
"Scanning to first event." Vi responds as a beeping sound loads as the video suddenly fast-forwards with a little loading box, before stopping. And I gotta say, it's a rather jarring thing. Despite the brain looking… I'm assuming relatively normal before, now there's this black gunk or something running up through the body and directly into the brain.
"What is that?" I ask the question on everyone's minds as we watch the video.
"It invades the brain like meningitis." Jenner explains, glancing back towards me for a second. "The adrenal glands hemmorage, the brain goes into shutdown, then the major organs." He says as the black stuff quickly spreads through the brain on the screen, which is quickly going dark as the person on the video visibly begins to show signs of pain… before going still as the brain goes completely dark. "Then death." He says somberly. "Everything you ever were or ever will be… gone…"
The silence permeates through the room as the information sinks in. No matter what we might have wished before, even if it was a small hope, now we know for sure…
The walkers aren't people. They never will be again.
They're dead.
Looks of complete shock, sadness, and visible distress washes over everyone, including me, and I happen to glance over at John.
Poor kids looking like he's holding back tears, and every muscle in his face is tense as he looks away, and despite my frustration with his decision the day before, I can't help it when I move closer to him.
"You okay?" I ask him as I place a hand on his shoulder.
He shakes his hand as he takes a deep inhale. "No…" He admits, and there's a noticable quiver in his voice. "Not by a long shot." He admits.
Jenner's voice breaks the moment as he turns back to the screen. "Scan to the second event."
"Scanning to second event." Vi responds as the video fast-forwards once more.
"The resurrection times vary wildly." Jenner explains as we wait for the video to fast-forward. "We had reports of it happening in as little as three minutes. The longest we heard of was eight hours." He reveals as he lets out a small sigh. "In the case of this patient, it was two hours, one minute… seven seconds."
There's a tone of anguish in his voice as he speaks, and it sounds like he's sad as he recalls some of these details. I'm beginning to wonder if he knew this person.
On the screen, it's like a dark crimson spark is popping up in the center of the clearly dead brain, passing through to the rest of it slowly.
"It restarts the brain?" Lori asks in disbelief.
"No, just the brain stem." Jenner corrects with a shake of his head as he turns towards Lori. "Basically it gets them up and moving…"
"But they're still dead." Jim pipes in, a look of sadness on his face. He's probably thinking about his family right now. "Just a walking corpse."
"Yes…" Jenner nods sadly. "The frontal lobe, the neocortex, the human part, that doesn't come back. The you part." He explains sadly as the person on the screen- well… not person anymore, begins to visibly move. "Just a shell, driven by mindless instinct."
Something comes into view at the top of the screen, just barely, before the entire thing flashes for a second. Then the walker's not moving anymore, and there's a visible line, a hole, running through the entire skull.
"God…" Carol god help but say. "What was that?" She asks, though I think we all know exactly what it was.
"He shot her." John says, glancing over at Jenner. "Didn't you?"
Jenner doesn't reply directly, instead adressing the facility A.I. "Vi, power down the main screen and the work stations." He orders as he walks away.
"Powering down main screen and work stations." Vi replies, and there's an audible sound of power being disabled for a few moments.
"You have no clue what this fucking thing is, do you, doc?" Merle asks as he looks at Jenner. I'll say this, Merle's surprisingly observant. Then again, I don't think anyone but Daryl actually knows Merle.
Jenner is silent for a moment before he speaks. "It could be microbial, viral, parasitic, fungal…"
"Or the wrath of God?" Jacqui inquires to the scientist, and at this point, I think anything's possible.
"There's that." Jenner nods his head.
"Somebody has to know something, right?" Amy asks, at this point, it just sounds like she's just looking for hope, like all of us.
"Aren't there other facilities, Doc?" Shane asks curiously. "Couldn't there be someone out there?"
"There may be some." Jenner replies after a moment of hesitation. "People like me."
"You don't know?" RIck asks in disbelief. "How can you not know?"
"Everything went down." Jenner replies sadly. "Communications, directives, all of it. I've been in the dark for almost a month." He says with a sigh.
"There's not a damn thing left anywhere, is there?" John asks, his tone kind of blank and lifeless, if that makes sense. Emotionless.
Jenner doesn't respond, and I wonder if he's just trying to avoid crushing any hope we may have, or if it's something else.
"Jesus…" Jacqui mutters under her breath.
"Oh god…" Amy says, tears in her eyes as she processes what we've all just learned.
"Man, I'm gonna get shitfaced drunk again." Daryl says as he leans against a computer and sets his head inside his hands.
"I'm with you there, little brother." Merle replies, sounding uncharacteristicly somber at the moment.
I look at John, and he looks to be in deep thought.
"What's up?" I ask him, and he turns his gaze to look at me for a moment, silent, as if contemplating his words.
"There…" He trails off with that one word, as if debating whether he should tell me, or possibly all of us, before he looks as if he's overcome with resolve. "There is hope."
"How do you know?" I can't help but ask him. As much as I'd like to be making him feel better, with what we just found out, how can we have any sort of hope.
John looks at me for a moment, before he stands up off the computer he was leaning on and looks at Jenner. "Why don't we tell the good news after the bombshells we just had?" He says to the doctor, causing visible confusion to run through everyone's faces.
"Good news?" Andrea asks in disbelief.
"How can there be any good news from this?" Jim asks with a shake of his head.
John glances around for a moment, as if contemplating his next actions, before he lets out a sigh.
"Whatever it is, it's airborne." He reveals. "I found out from Jenner last night, and I didn't want to crush any hope. The bites don't infect us, they activate it. We're already infected."
What?
No… that can't be true…
"What do you mean, we're already infected?" Rick asks in disbelief, before turning to look at Jenner, who's looking at John with a blank expression. "What's he talking about?"
"The virus is sitting within all of us, dormant." Jenner answers with a sigh, and looks of shock and cries of disbelief rang through the room, myself included. "The bites only kickstart the infection by killing you. The virus truly takes hold upon death."
"How is this good news?" Dale asks as he looks at John, and I'm right there with him. What about that could possibly considered good news?
"Because I'm not infected." John reveals, causing a stunned silence to run through all of us. "Jenner came and found me yesterday after he did my bloodwork. Whatever the virus is, it sits inside, untouched, in anyone else. But my white blood cells destroy it immediately." He explains to us all, his gaze running over all of us as he speaks. "Whatever it is, I'm immune to it."
There's a visible silence at the declaration, as we all soak in what John has just said, and the implications behind it.
It's Amy that breaks the silence.
"So there is hope…" She says, sounding so immensely relieved. And I am too. If what John says is true, there's a very good chance that this will all be over one day, that a cure can be found.
Finally, John gives a small smile. "You better believe it."
"Unfortunately, a cure won't be as helpful as many of you think unless we can develope an airborne cure." Jenner says with a sigh, taking a seat in one of the chairs nearby.
"What makes you say that?" T-Dog asks with a raised eyebrow. "We can make a cure, end this."
"The walkers are dead. That's what you call them, right?" Jenner asks in his response. "If we cure ourselves, that means we never turn, and once we die, we stay dead, like normal. But those things are already dead. Any cure in there system wouldn't revert them to human, simply remove the virus from their system, and put them down for good."
"And we can't just inject every walker we see with a liquid cure." Shane says in support of the doctor's words with a sigh. "Injection would work on all of us, but we'd need an airborne cure to safely deal with the walkers."
Well, hope's not gone, it's still definitely there, but the mood has definitely dulled a little once more at that little revelation. Until we can somehow manage to get an airborne vaccine or cure, there's no way to safely deal with the walkers.
But still… there's a possibility to end this thing. And John's the key.
Look at that. The Juggernaut, saving the world again.
"Doctor Jenner, I know this has been taxing for you, and I hate to ask one more question, but… that clock." At Dale's words, we all glance towards what he's pointing towards. There's a large clock on the wall that's counting down, and it's only got about an hour left. "It's counting down… what happens at zero?" He asks as he turns to look at Jenner.
Jenner is silent, staring at him for a moment. "The uh… the basement generators, they run out of fuel." He says as he turns away and begins walking away.
"And then?" Rick asks, but Jenner actually ignores him, and just keeps walking away, so Rick does the next best thing. "Vi, what happens when the power runs out?"
"When the power runs out, facility-wide decontamination will occur." Vi answers. And I do not like the sound of that.
Very clearly, no one here does.
"Everyone, get your stuff. Shane, Glenn, T-Dog, John, let's go." Rick says urgently as he begins rushing away, moving quickly towards the basement, and every one he asked for is quick to follow behind him.
"Decontamination, what does that mean?" I can't help but ask as we rush down the steps to the basement, where the generators are.
"I don't like the way Jenner clammed up." Shane remarks from in front of me, speaking to us all. "The way he just wandered off like that."
"What's wrong with him?" T-Dog can't help but ask. "Seriously, man."
"He's hiding something." John says from behind us. "And I'm not sure we'll like what it is."
Big words considering what he pulled last night, but now isn't the time or the place.
We all come to a stop at the bottom of a staircase as Rick checks a map, Shane moving by his side to join him, before Rick looks off to the right.
"In there." He says, pointing to a door right down the hall. He moves with urgency and we're all quick to follow. If it's generators, they can be refilled, right? There's gotta be another power source around here somewhere.
I move in front of Shane as Rick opens the door, since me and Rick are the ones with flashlights. The room is really dark, almost completely black, but I can make out some fuel drums inside.
Suddenly the lights hum to life as Rick finds a switch on a nearby powerbox, eliminating the need for a flashlight for the moment.
It's a decent sized room, and there are a lot of generators in here.
"Check that way." Rick orders, glancing towards us, before glancing towards Shane. "Shane."
Me, T-Dog, and John move over towards the right, looking around for something, anything. There's the sound of something active, machinary, somewhere down here, but none of us can figure out where at the moment.
"All these ones are out of power." John remarks as we glance at them. "Out of juice. Fuel drums hooked to them are empty."
"There's gotta be others, right?" T-Dog asks, moving towards some disconnected drums and giving them a shake. I follow his example, moving towards a few others as John follows behind us, checking some further ahead.
"These ones are empty." I say to the two as I move a few around, hoping to hear the sound, feel the weight of gas inside them.
"So are these!" John calls back.
Suddenly, the entire room goes dark for a second, causing us all to jerk up and look around.
"Emergency lighting on." Vi echoes through the facility, causing us to glance at each other.
"Let's find Rick and Shane." John says, moving past us at a light jog. "There's nothing here."
Me and T-Dog follow behind John, and we can see the shine of Rick's flashlight ahead.
"Hey, you guys kill the lights?" John asks as he approaches the two.
"Nah, it just went out." Shane replies with a sigh.
"Anything?" Rick asks us as we slow to a walk as we approach them.
"Yeah, a lot of dead generators and more empty fuel drums than I can count." T-Dog replies as he comes up behind us as Shane leans down and shines his flashlight at the generator they're standing next to, which is the active one, checking the fuel gauge.
"It can't be down to just that one." Shane says when he sees how low the guage is. It's almost empty.
"It can." John says with a sigh. "Big building like this? It uses up the generators one at a time. Probably why he kept refueling all of the." He remarks as he runs his hand through his hair in frustration. "Probably did it all at once so that he didn't have to keep coming down here."
"Is there a chance we can go find some more fuel?" I can't help but ask curiously.
"Nearest place with drums like what we need won't be for miles, and even then, we don't have a way of transporting many in the first place." RIck says with a sigh as he brings his hand to his head in frustration. "Not much we can do, and there's still that decontamination thing to worry about."
"What happens during decontamination?" I can't help but ask.
"Considering what this place is, nothing good." Shane replies with a sigh, moving his hand to his hips.
Suddenly, we can hear the sound of the air shutting off, and it sounds like lights are shutting down outside the basement.
"What's going on?" T-Dog asks in confusion.
"Let's go find out." Shane replies as he moves past us, leading us all back out of the room. We're quick to follow, rushing as quick as we can back to the main hub.
"Rick?" Lori's voice from atop the staircase catches our attention, and Rick gestures for them to stay up there as we all run out into view. We meet up with Jenner as he makes it to the bottom of the steps, and I can see a bottle of whiskey in his hand.
If that's not a bad sign, I don't know what is.
"Jenner, what's happening?" Rick does not sound pleased as he asks the question, and he moves to stay with the scientist as Jenner walks right past him.
"The system is dropping all nonessential uses of power." Jenner replies quickly, never slowing down. "It's designed to keep the computers running to the last possible second. That started as we approach the half hour mark." As we walk out to where we can see the clock on the wall, I can see it reads 31:28, and dropping. "Right on schedule."
Jenner stops at the bottom of the steps to take a big gulp of the whiskey, and we all just stare at him, waiting for an explanation, a sound, anything. He turns towards Daryl, and offers him the bottle of whiskey, and Daryl jerks it out of his hands, and he doesn't look pleased at all.
All of us, even Merle, are silent as we wait for an explanation, when Jenner turns to us. "It was the French."
"Huh?" John says from behind me, visibly confused and unsettled by Jenner's demeanor.
"They were the last ones to hold out as far as I know." Jenner clarifies, referring to what he'd said earlier. "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 asks.
"The same thing that's happening here. No power grid, ran out of juice." He says, before he moves the rest of the way up the steps before turning back to us. "The world runs on fossil fuel. I mean, how stupid is that?"
"Let me tell you something-"
"To hell with it, Shane!" Rick stops Shane in his tracks before he can move any closer to the doctor. Yesterday, it was Shane trying to stop Rick, and now, it's Rick stopping Shane. "I don't even care." He turns to look at the rest of us. "Lori, grab your things. Everybody grab your stuff, we're getting out of here, now!" He says. I can see Jenner moving over to a computer console, but no one is paying attention to him right now.
We all begin to move towards the door, making for the housing area and out of the main hub, but we're stopped when an alarm begins blaring through the hub.
"What's that?" Carl asks John from next to him as John tries to nudge him out of the room.
"Nothing good." Is John's simple reply.
"Thirty minutes to decontamination." Vi announces as the gigantic screen ahead boots up, with a clock counting down on it.
"Doc, what the hell's going on here?!" Merle demands, but Daryl's pulling his brothers arm, trying to drag him along.
"Forget it, Merle, let's go!" Daryl says to the elder Dixon.
"Everybody, you heard Rick, go get your stuff now!" Shane says, getting us all back on track, and we all hurry to obey, moving towards the door.
Maybe we should've been paying attention to Jenner.
We're stopped in our tracks when the entrance is sealed by a large grey blast door, and we all look hopelessly at the door. I can feel my face morph into one of horror and pure terror as I process what just happened.
"Did you just lock us in?" I can't help but ask as I turn to look towards Jenner, who's sitting down at one of the computers. "He just locked us in!"
"Carl!" Lori shouts to her son.
"Mom!" Carl gladly retreats from John and runs towards his mother, and I gotta say, John looks absolutely furious as he storms up the steps after Daryl and Merle.
"You son of a bitch!" Daryl shouts furiously.
"Open the damn door, you piece of shit!" Merle snarls, right behind his brother.
Both Dixons are on a warpath, and it's no surprise where their target is.
"Shane, John!" Rick calls out to John and Shane. Both immediately get the meaning and obey. John snags Daryl from moving any further, causing the man to struggle in his grip as John holds him up off the ground by the waste, taking every elbow to the face in stride.
"Let me go!"
T-Dog moves to join Shane, both of them rushing for Merle as he snags Jenner's jacket, the chair rolling as he raises his fist up to smash it over Jenner's head.
"No, no, no, no!" Shane shouts as he drags Merle away from the doctor, with T-Dog joining him, the two larger men restraining Merle.
"I'm gonna kill you, you sorry son of a bitch!" Merle shouts, practically ignoring Shane and T-Dog on him as he keeps trying to reach the doctor.
"Man, just stop, Dixon!" T-Dog says once more, and for this time, he doesn't get a hit to the face for his troubles, and both T-Dog and Shane push Merle back.
"Enough!" Shane says, holding a hand out to stop an agitated Merle from moving on the doctor. For once, I don't blame the guy for being pissed.
"Jenner, open that door now." Rick says, his face stern and serious as he marches up to the doctor, looking like he's trying not to shoot him in the face.
"There's no point, everything topside is locked down. The emergency exits are sealed." Jenner responds with a logical argument, completely ignoring the fact that he's literally trapping us here to die.
"Well open the damn things!" Daryl growls from by John, who's let him go at this point.
"That's not something I control, the computers do." Jenner replies with a shake of his head as he points at Rick. "I told you, once the front door closed, it wouldn't open again, you heard me say that."
We're all silent as we process what he's told us, trying to understand what sort of logic Jenner's getting at Carol pulls Sophia close, and I spot John resting a hand on Amy's shoulder to try to comfort the now crying girl as Andrea hugs her. Jim looks absolutely baffled by the turn of events, and it looks like he's trying to process what's happening.
"Jenner, open the damn door." John growls, stepping forward past Amy and up the steps, marching up to the doctor.
"Didn't you hear what I said?" Jenner says with a shake of his head as he looks at John. "Not even you are strong enough to-HRK!"
"Woah, kid!"
"John, no!"
Rick and Shane both are rushing at John, which only me and Jim know is a useless effort, as John's hand seems to flash up from his side and wrap around Jenner's neck, dragging him up from the chair.
"You don't know what I'm capable of, now open the damn DOOR!"
Jesus, I don't think I've seen John this furious. Knowing who he is…
It's actually a terrifying site.
"I! Can't!" Jenner manages to choke out from the grip on his neck. John looks none to pleased at the answer, and if he grits his teeth any harder, I think he might crack them.
"John, let him-WOAH!" Shane finds himself falling to the ground as John lifts Jenner up off the ground with the kind of ease and strength no normal human could possess, and since that's the arm Shane was tugging at, it's the sudden action must've thrown him off.
"Open. The. Door." John growls, and his voice is filled with nothing but fury, and Jenner looks to be struggling to breath at this point, his face is turning blue.
Of all people, it's Jacqui who rushes up to John, placing one hand on her shoulder and another on on his hand, trying to both convince and calm him down.
"Hon, put him down, or we're never getting out of here." Jacqui says urgently and pleadingly, trying to convince John-
No. This isn't John anymore.
It's the Juggernaut.
"He's the only one who knows how to open the doors." Jacqui says, and at this point, Jenner's tugging desperately at John's hand, trying to pry him off. "If he dies, we'll never get out of here."
John glares at Jenner for a moment, before gritting his teeth, and dropping him with a growl of frustration.
Jenner collapses to the floor, gasping, taking in deep breath as he tries to fill his lungs with much deprived oxygen. There's a visible hand-shaped bruise on his neck from where John had him, and I can only imagine how much that's gonna hurt later.
If he lives that long.
"What, we find a chance for some kind of cure, a chance to put an end to this, and you're gonna let a clock decide when you're done?" John snarls, glaring down at the doctor. Every single one of us is silent as he speaks. "What happened to all that talk about hoping to do some good? Trying to find something? When you finally do, that's when you decide to call it quits?!"
"I didn't stay because I wanted to." Jenner's voice is strained, and it sounds like just talking is painful, but he does anyway as he finds his feet and looks up at John. "I made a promise." He says to John, not looking at all afraid, only angry, sad, hurt, as he points towards the giant screen. "To her. My wife."
"TS-19? She was your wife?" Andrea asked as she stepped forward.
"She was a loss to the world." Jenner replies, glaring right back at John without a hint of fear. "She was Einstein among us, she could've done something about this. But I'm just… Edwin Jenner. I work here. She ran the place."
"Do you think your wife would want this for you?" John snarls without a second thought, not at all caring that it was a low blow. "You think she'd want you to take us with you?"
At that one, Jenner, doesn't say anything, finally breaking under John's gaze as he turns away from him for a moment, before he goes right back to glaring at him, tears in his eyes. "I promised her I'd go till the very end. This is it." He says, ignoring John's words.
"No." John denies, backing away without breaking eye contact with Jenner as he shakes his head. "Not as long as I'm here." Then he turns around.
"What are you gonna do?" Jenner calls after John, who now has all eyes on him as he marches away from the doctor. "You may be a superhuman, but you're tough, not strong!" He calls after him.
"You're wrong." John replies without looking back as he makes his way past us, gunning it straight for…
Oh.
Oh!
OH SHIT! YES!
WOOHOO! WE'RE GETTING OUT OF HERE!
I can't help the excited grin on my face as I realize what John's about to do, and a quick glance towards Jim sees a knowing and somewhat relieved smile on his face as he watches on.
"What are you gonna do, kid?" Jenner calls out to John as he makes his way up the ramp. "That doors designed to withstand a rocket launcher! Only the Juggernaut could-"
BANG!
Jenner cuts himself off as his eyes go wide, a look of absolute shock on his face as John absolutely nails the door with one of the hardest hits I've ever seen. The sound is like… I don't even know what to compare it to. In this closed off room, it sounds louder than the clap in the city, but the only thing I can really think to call it is… strong.
Everyone has looks of pure and utter shock on their faces, unable to believe what they are seeing as they take in what they just witnessed.
That single punch alone jostled the entire door, and there's a massive dent in the shape of John's fist in it as cracks form around the frame from the power behind the hit.
"I… am… the… JUGGERNAUT!" Every word John says is accompanied by another hit, each one sounding more and more powerful than the last as the door is pretty much malformed and misshapen with every single hit, his declaration flooding through all of us.
And then… of all people…
Carl's cheering from his mom's arms.
"TAKE IT DOWN, JOHN!" I guess it makes sense that Carl would be excited rather than scared. After all, not only does he know we're getting out of here, but he now knows that among our group is one of, if not the most, powerful superhuman to ever walk the face of the Earth.
One of Earth's best superheroes. I don't care what John says, it's true.
If the real world worked in real life like it did in movies, I feel like John would've taken the door down in the first two hits. But nonetheless, at this point, the door is torn from the frame everywhere except the ground, and I'm beginning to wonder if he's just making a show of it at this point. Like a declaration or something, a push to keep fighting.
The door itself, while strong, is also small, so once he realizes that the door is broken from the rest of the frame, John grabs it by the top and begins pulling at it.
The sound of bending and tearing metal lasts only for a second, before John tears the door off completely, before throwing it over the side, huffing out of either the effort he just exerted, his own anger, or habit. I'm betting it's latter two, considering from what I've heard, he's strong enough to demolish a tank with ease.
Slowly, John turns to look back towards us, and his eyes scan over us.
"Get your stuff! Pack up extra if you can, and get to the entrance!" He instructs us all as he begins moving back down the ramp, and all of us are quick to follow his instructions without hesitation. We still have around twenty minutes to go, so we should have plenty of time.
"You heard him! Double time, people!" Shane shouts as he rushes down the steps past John. As a former cop, he probably knows how to keep his priorities straight in spite of what he just saw.
"Come on, Carl." Lori shoots John a look of pure gratitude as she scoops up Carl in her arms and runs out with the others.
"Let's go, Amy, we have to hurry." Andrea instructs her sister, who's still looking at John in absolute disbelief, as she pulls her along.
"Come on, Merle!" Daryl says to his brother, who is quick to follow, more focused on getting out than processing John's revelation.
"Come on, we have to go." Jim gently nudges both Sophia and Carol, who are looking at John in disbelief.
Almost everyone rushes out of the room, gunning it for there rooms to gather there things. Since we still have twenty minutes, I can't help my curiosity to see where this goes.
Outside of myself, the only three left in the room are Rick, John, and Jenner.
"The very end isn't now." John says as he comes to a stop next to Jenner. "The very end is when your heart stops beating."
"How am I supposed to find a cure out there?" Jenner can't help but ask, and a part of me is wondering if he's just trying to find a reason for himself to stay. "Without medical and research tools like what this facility has?"
"It'll slow you down, but not stop you." John responds, crouching down to one knee. I know he's only seventeen, but his whole persona right now… it's like he's been doing this for years.
Maybe he has.
"I have faith in you, Jenner. You'd reach this cure, and make your wife proud." John says, and now, he has a smile on his face. It's those words that finally clue me in.
Jenner misses his wife. He… wants to see her again.
Getting over his shock, Rick stands next to John and places a hand on Jenner's shoulder. "Listen to him, Jenner." Rick urges, his voice full of sympathy and heartfelt words. "You made a promise to your wife. That promise isn't over yet."
Jenner looks between the two, and the tears fall harder as he shakes his head.
"How can I go on without her?" He asks, his voice soft, and full of pain.
John replies without a second thought. "Maybe you should focus more on the time you have, the time you've had, with those you care for."
My eyes widen at the words. That's what Jacqui had said to him on the way to the quarry three days ago, the day we met him. Sounds like he thinks a lot of her.
"But everyone I care for is dead." Jenner replies with a shake of his head. "So how can I focus on that?"
"You don't get what I mean." John says with a smile. "Live for your loved ones. In their memory." He clarifies. "Would they really want you to end it all here? Would they really want that for you?"
Jenner looks at John for a moment, processing what John said, thinking, mulling over his decision for a moment.
And then he stands up.
"John, with me." Jenner replies as he looks at him, before turning to look at Rick. "We still have eighteen minutes, and I need to get as much supplies as I can. You and him get out of here, me and John will be right behind you."
Rick nods, more than happy with the decision if the smile on his face is any indication. "Got it." He turns to me as he rushes in my direction. "Glenn, let's go!"
I waste no time in following him. By now, everyone has their stuff, so all we have to do is get ours and get up to the entrance. Hopefully, by now, everyone's cleared out and outside, we just have to wait for John and Jenner.
No words are exchanged between us. Rick runs ahead, since Lori most likely has his stuff already, and I veer off to grab my stuff from my room, already packed like we were told to earlier, for booking it after him.
We make it to the entrance after a long run and an uncomfortable elevator ride, but to our surprise, everyone's still there.
"What's going on?" Rick asks Shane, who looks frustrated as he walks up to him.
"The damn windows won't break." Shane replies with a shake of his head. "Not even a gun does it, and we have nothing on us to break it. Where's John?"
"He and Jenner are packing up tools so that Jenner can do the work he needs to." I answer in Rick's place.
Shane looks at me in surprise, before looking at Rick. "We really let Jenner come with us?" He asks in disbelief. "After what he just tried?"
"Anyone else here have any idea where to start with a cure?" Rick asks Shane in response. We all know the answer, so Shane let's out a sigh.
"Alright." He concedes, because he knows the truth: Jenner's the only one who could possibly create any sort of cure for this. "But they need to hurry. We're counting down to fifteen minutes, and I don't want to be inside, or anywhere near here when that clock runs out."
"Neither do we." Rick replies with a sigh.
It's a long and tense wait for John and Jenner, and everyone looks a little nervous, but after about five minutes, the two finally arrive, and Jenner has a large bag on his shoulder, packed to the brim with supplies of some sort.
"I snagged some medicine and food for the future in case we need it." Jenner informs us all, and I have to say, I'm grateful for the quick thinking.
"Why's everyone still here?" John asks, looking towards Shane.
"Damn window's bullet proof, we can't break it." Shane says, before looking at John urgently. "Think you can…" He trails off, but the message is there. It probably sounds weird, asking a teen you'd thought was normal for three days to smash through a bullet proof window.
"Say no more." John says as he takes off from his spot, leaping up onto the window sill where Merle and Daryl were trying to break open the windows, and he completely shatters it with one hit. "Come on!"
Everyone immediately hauls out, John jumping off to the other side and paying attention to us, making sure everyone gets out. Shane and Rick follow behind Merle and Daryl, and they fire on a few walkers that hone in on us, taking them down as every single one of us sprints to the cars.
I take up the rear, with John behind me, and I can hear a grunt when I pass by a walker that's a little too close for comfort, accompanied by the sound of crunching bone and squishing skin. I have a pretty good idea, but I have absolutely no wish to look back and see the aftermath.
All I know… is we're alive.
But John's secret is out.
Everyone is gonna want an explanation.