TS-19
Carol
A great sense of foreboding hung in the air as the group made its way in to the CDC. Both Carol and her oldest daughter stuck close to Sophia, although Daryl stuck very close to the trio. She was pretty sure she knew exactly what her daughter was doing; looking for company in anyone who'd talk to her now Amy was gone. She expected soon enough she would move on to Andrea, once she was finished grieving of course. Still, Carol liked Daryl, and it couldn't hurt to have him close by in unfamiliar territory to keep Sophia safe. And God knew Juliet needed someone at least partially level headed to keep her from doing anything she hadn't thought through properly.
"Hello?" Everyone seemed to be calling out all at once, no one voice distinguishable from the others as everyone looked around.
A man with a gun soon appeared out of the darkness and all eyes were on him.
"Anybody infected?" he called out to them, still keeping them at bay with his gun.
"One of our group was." Rick told him. The rest of the group was silent, still remembering leaving Jim on the side of the road. The sight of him sat there as they had driven away seemed engraved in Carol's brain. "He didn't make it."
"Why are you here? What do you want?" Both questions were asked too quickly for Rick, who seemed to have appointed himself official group spokesperson, to give them any serious thought. The man probably just wanted to know what came to mind.
"A chance." Rick answered simply.
"That's asking an awful lot these days." the man said as he moved closer. Carol could see him clearly now. He might have been handsome once, but he was older now, world worn. He had sad eyes, eyes which said he had given up, lost all hope as he scanned over their group, taking in each member individually, perhaps weighing up whether or not to allow them to stay.
"I know."
She was sure he wouldn't let them. She clutched Sophia close and felt Juliet's hand on her shoulder before she realised she was about to cry. She felt exhausted. After all that had happened in the last couple of days she was not well rested enough to be dealing with this.
"You all submit to a blood test, that's the price of admission." Her lips parted a little. She honestly couldn't believe this man was taking in a group of strangers.
"We can do that." Rick said. He sounded incredibly relieved.
"You got stuff to bring in, do it now. Once that door closes it stays closed." She knew there was still some stuff in the cars, but everyone seemed happy just to leave it for now. Most had backpacks with what little they would immediately need with them. She was sure anyway that he just meant the door would be closed for the night. They could go out tomorrow, if they were staying for longer than that and bring the rest of it in.
They all piled in to a glass lift where Rick introduced himself.
"Dr Edwin Jenner." the man replied. He didn't shake the hand Rick offered him.
Some of the others spoke in the lift. Carol didn't. Juliet was a little away from all of them now. Carol could practically hear the ringing in her ears. She knew her daughter was claustrophobic, to the point where she found it hard to breathe in a small stairwell, let alone an elevator tightly packed with fifteen other people.
"Breathe." she told her gently. Her eyes had glossed over a little, but she blinked and looked at her blankly.
"I'm trying."
It was only when they got out of the lift that she realised they had been travelling down. Juliet looked green practically.
"We're underground?" she asked weakly.
"I think so. Hey, are we underground?" Carol asked loud enough for Jenner to hear her.
"Why, are you claustrophobic?"
"Not me." Jenner looked round, first to Sophia who, while a little scared looked okay, then to Juliet who definitely did not. He smiled at her faintly, which she did not return. Carol could hear her counting from one to ten over again.
"Your daughter?" Carol nodded. "Try not to think about it."
"Wow, wish I'd thought of that." Juliet replied drily.
"Can't be that bad if you're makin' sarcastic comments, can it?" Daryl asked her. Juliet just glared at him and kept walking.
Jenner brought up the lights and welcomed them to Zone Five. Carol wondered just how big the complex was. It hadn't seemed massive when they had been driving up to it, but that was on the surface. The rooms could stretch for miles further than that underground.
The room was big and airy, and she felt Juliet relax a little. It was easier to pretend you were above ground here than it was in the corridor.
"Where is everybody? The other doctors, the staff?" Rick asked him.
"It's just me here." Jenner told them.
"What about Vi?" Juliet asked him. He'd called Vi a couple of times now, once to shut of the power upstairs, once to turn the lights on down here. He looked at her like he expected her to know the answer.
"Vi, say hello to our guests. Tell them welcome." Jenner instructed.
"Hello guests. Welcome." It was a robotic voice which seemed to come over an invisible speaker.
"A computer?" Juliet asked again. He nodded.
"I'm all that's left." It honestly felt like all the hope they had regained when the shutters had opened for them outside had disappeared. "I'm sorry."
Jenner took them to what looked like a lecture hall, complete even with a whiteboard at the front, to take their blood. Juliet went first, before anyone else could.
"Brave." Jenner commented.
"Just didn't want anyone to go first and scare me." Juliet replied. She had her eyes pressed shut, but Carol could see the needle. She remembered taking her for shots as a kid, how she'd screamed and had to be pinned down. Carol used to take her for raspberry sorbet afterwards, because even as a kid she'd had to be as pretentious as possible. All the other kids were running about with chocolate ice-cream down their chins and she'd sit with sorbet, dabbing her mouth every time she thought some had got on her face, sighing at the other three year olds.
"You're scared of needles and small spaces? Today must be just wonderful for you."
"I'm loving every minute."
He jabbed the needle into her arm and she cursed violently under her breath. He laughed and drew a little blood out before he removed the needle.
"There, see, not so bad."
"I don't like you." He laughed again.
Juliet sat by herself until Sophia's blood had been taken, then Sophia went and sat with her. Juliet was doing her best not to lose patience with her, but it was clearly a struggle. She was about to go and retrieve Sophia when Daryl went over to them.
"Hey kid. You mind if I borrow your sister for a while. Need to talk to her 'bout some stuff." Juliet looked confused, but Sophia shrugged and agreed, getting up and coming back over to Carol who put her arms around her immediately. "You owe me." Carol heard him whisper to Juliet. She smiled and nodded.
"Thanks."
After learning that it had been days since they had eater properly, Jenner took the group down to the kitchen, where they were presented not only with food, but wine too. Everyone's spirits seemed immediately lifted, apart from Shane, who didn't join in with the mirth and sat away a little. Even Daryl was having more fun than him, teaching Juliet to take out the corks from wine bottles with her teeth ('It's a completely trailer park trash skill but you can start drinkin' faster'), insisting Glenn had a drink ('Whaddya mean you don't fuckin' drink Short Round, have a damn glass of wine'), getting Glenn drunk ('Whaddya mean you wanna slow up, have another glass') and then laughing about it with Juliet ('It's a damn shame we can't take pictures of this shit'). This was all well before dinner was even served, within twenty minutes of arriving in the room. Carol herself had drunk half a glass. Most of the others had managed to get on to their third. Juliet and Daryl had already polished off their fourth glasses and were now swigging something out of a bottle Daryl had found.
Carol wondered if she should be concerned that her almost twenty year old daughter could drink most of the others under the table. She shrugged it off.
Dale and Rick insisted Carl needed to have some wine with his dinner, which Lori reluctantly agreed to. Carol was glad Sophia didn't ask for any, because she knew Juliet would be more than willing to pour her a tall glass, and she'd probably finish it just to prove a point.
"Eww!" Carl exclaimed upon drinking it. Everyone laughed.
"That's my boy." Lori said with a grin in Carol's direction.
"Yuck!" Carl reiterated as Lori poured what little he had been given in to her own glass. "That tastes nasty!"
"Stick to soda pop there bud." Shane suggested. It was the first he had spoken since entering the room.
"I wanna see how red your face can get." Daryl told Glenn as he took yet another drink.
"I just wanna see if he can match me, drink for drink." Juliet challenged.
"I'm already way behind." Glenn sounded miserable. Juliet laughed and hopped up on to the counter next to Glenn. She had never liked sitting at tables.
"Drink quick then."
Rick thanked Jenner in a very brief speech. Everyone raised their glasses to him, Daryl his bottle before he passed it back to Juliet warning her not to drink all his booze. She laughed and made some quip about sharing and caring before he took the flask back and announced that she was cut off, which she laughed off before pouring another glass of wine for herself.
"So when are you gonna tell us what the hell happened here then, Doc?" Shane asked Jenner. The happy atmosphere was immediately killed. "All the other doctors who were supposed to be figuring out what happened, where are they?"
"We're celebrating Shane. We don't need to do this now." Rick warned him.
"Wait a second. That's why we're here, right? This was your move to find all the answers. Instead… we found him. Found one man. Why?"
"When things got bad, a lot of people just left." Jenner explained. Carol could understand this. Those people must have had families, loved ones to go home to, and they had no obligation to stay and find any of the answers. "When the military cordon got overrun, the rest just bolted."
"Every last one." Shane said, sounding drunkenly disgusted by this.
"No." Jenner replied. There was a hint of disdain to his voice, a clear dislike for the other man. Jenner told them about the suicides. Carol didn't listen. She was too busy looking to Sophia, who looked scared by this. Carol put an arm around her. Sophia looked helplessly over to her older sister, but Juliet wasn't paying attention anymore. Carol had known this was going to happen. Juliet always spent a few days interested in her and then weeks ignoring her in favour of someone more fun. She'd be there if Sophia really needed her but begrudgingly so. She was more interested now in the flask Daryl had presented than letting her little sister know she would be okay. Carol remembered why sometimes, love her as she did, she didn't like her oldest daughter.
"Dude, you are such a buzz-kill, man." Glenn told Shane. Juliet and Daryl laughed inappropriately loudly. Conversation managed to pick back up, thanks to Dale, and everyone managed to resume having a good time, if not as good as before Shane had ruined it.
Jenner, after dinner, took them to see their rooms.
"If you shower, go easy on the hot water." Jenner warned them as he walked away.
"There's hot water?" Glenn was slurring his words a little.
"That's what the man said." T-Dog replied gleefully.
Carol left her stuff in an empty room, with three very comfortable looking couches. Juliet didn't look too happy to be sharing with her family, but she clearly wasn't in the mood to protest it. She was probably silently wishing Amy was still there so she could share with her and Andrea.
"Shotgun on the shower!" Juliet called. She sounded surprisingly alert considering how much she had drunk. Glenn hadn't been able to match her, but Daryl had. Still, Carol was admittedly worried that she might slip and fall in there. She voiced this to Juliet who just laughed. "I'll scream if I do."
Carol spent the evening with Sophia and Carl in the rec-room. She assumed Juliet had just stayed in their makeshift bedroom, though she wasn't in there after she sent Carl to his room and took Sophia in to theirs. She was probably just waiting until they were asleep to come in. She'd be off reading somewhere, Carol was sure.
Daryl
Unless Daryl wanted to share with Glenn or Dale, there weren't enough rooms for him. He mulled about in the kitchen for a while and found another, unopened bottle of wine. The floor was beginning to look like a good substitute for one of the couches when he remembered the rec room Jenner had mentioned earlier. Hoping no-one had decided to move in there he trudged down the corridor and went in.
The room was luckily dark and empty. The couch looked less comfy than the ones in the makeshift bedrooms, but it would do. It was better than anything they'd had back at camp.
Just as he was dropping off to sleep he heard arguing outside his door, voices that were trying not to rise too loudly. He couldn't make out words or who it was; he just willed them to go away. He heard one walk away and the other stood outside for a minute or two before reaching for the door to the rec room and entering. Daryl sighed. Not one moment of fucking peace.
He saw as the figure turned on the light that it was Juliet, and assumed that it was probably Carol she had been arguing with.
She hadn't seen him yet. She walked silently in to the room, running a hand through her hair and turned towards the sofas. She looked startled, then apologetic.
"Sorry, did I wake you? I didn't realise anyone would be in here."
"'S fine." he replied.
"Want me to turn the light off?"
"Not if you're stayin' in here."
"Do you mind if I do? I don't really want to go back to my room. Carol and I aren't really seeing eye to eye right now." Their argument had sounded pretty bad. He didn't particularly want her there, but he'd feel bad turning her away.
"Nah, it's fine."
She sat down on the sofa beside him. He offered her his flask immediately. Juliet smiled but didn't take it. He shook it and she sighed, rethinking her decision to reject it, and took it out of his hand and took a large swig from it before she handed it back to him so that he could do the same. It was the first time he had seen her drink. He had assumed that she would morph in to an Amy-esque excitable, giggly bundle when she was drunk but if anything she just became an oddly dulled down version of herself. He hadn't heard her quote anything pretentious since she had downed the first glass of wine. Strangely, he wasn't thinking of it as an improvement.
"What were you fightin' about with Carol?" he asked her. He had picked up on a certain discomfort she had when he referred to Carol as her mother, and in this state she'd probably just yell at him for it rather than doing anything rational. She sighed.
"Sophia. Whenever we argue it's always about Sophia." She was slurring very slightly. She hadn't been when he'd left her after dinner. He wondered how much she'd drunk between then and now. "She's convinced I've been ignoring her all day, I mean I've been in another fucking car for most of it! But oh no, just because I want five fucking minutes to myself I'm a terrible person, it's like, she's not my fucking kid, y'know?" She was swearing a lot more than usual. Her lexicon was usually rather colourful, though not nearly as much as his own, but this was extreme.
"I ain't seen you ignore her before though. You're usually pretty patient with the kid."
"Well Carol thinks it's because I have you to talk to now and you're more interesting, which you are but only because you're older. I fucking hate talking to kids. I'm fucking terrible with them." She seemed okay with Sophia usually, but there was that whole pretentious thing which had disappeared. That probably made it hard to talk to kids. "It's not even that, but it's not like I can fucking talk to her, is it?" He assumed the correct answer here was just to nod along. "I'm just so sick of her thinking the worst of me. She blames me for everything that happened after I left home, like it's my fault she married an abusive asshole. I warned her he'd start on Sophia, I fucking warned her, and she didn't fucking listen and now we're here, stuck together because two and a half months ago Sophia phoned me in tears after he…" She stopped, looking as though she suddenly realising she was speaking. "Sorry."
"You got nothin' to apologise for." he assured her.
"You could have just told me to shut up."
"Why would I do that?"
"'Cause I'm talking too much."
"I don't mind. We're friends, remember?" This elicited a very small smile from her. It faded quickly much like every smile he'd given her.
"I failed her, didn't I?"
"No, you didn't."
"I did. I wasn't there when she needed me. It took me a fucking week to get to her after she called because I didn't even have the money for a flight there. Had to beg a lift off friends who were supposed to be on a romantic road trip. I should never have left her alone there in the first place."
"Carol was there." She laughed, almost bitterly.
"You've seen the size of her. You think she ever stood a chance against Ed?"
"You wouldn't stand much more."
"Least I've got a bit more weight behind me."
"In all fairness most people have more weight behind them than she does." She laughed again, sounding a little more like her normal self.
"I'm glad this happened you know. Glad they had to come to a camp surrounded by other people. He might have still hurt Carol but he never laid a hand on Sophia here, not to beat her, not for anything worse either." She put her hand in her hands for a second before she looked up, dark blue eyes fixed on him. "I thought she'd be okay. I mean he used to hit me but not the way he hit her. Never did anything else to me either, but that might have been the fact I had the sense to put a lock on my door, not that I blame Sophia for not. She's just a kid. She shouldn't have had to be terrified like that in her own house."
It was very abrupt that she started crying, noiselessly, putting her head in her hands again. Daryl was very aware that he couldn't just sit there and let her cry, yet a hand on the shoulder didn't seem quite reassuring enough. Rather tentatively and a little awkwardly he put his arms around her and she laughed again, still crying.
"Are you hugging me?"
"Seemed like a good idea."
"I'm not really a hug person."
"Obviously I'm not either." She smiled weakly and wiped away the last of her tears and rested her head on his shoulder, seeing it as a better pillow than anything else close by. He kept one arm around her and kept his eyes fixed on her, worried that she might start sobbing again. A little while had passed and she seemed okay. "You feel better now?"
"A little." she admitted. "Sorry for crying on you."
"'S alright."
"You mind if I stay in here?"
"Fine, but I was here first. You take the chair, I keep the couch."
"What, we're not sharing this ridiculously small sofa? Fine." She was smiling again now. He found it odd that she could switch from one to other so quickly, in a way which made him doubt a little if the smile she wore was genuine. If it was him he wouldn't bother. In fact, he didn't bother. It took a lot to make him smile. Juliet was the only person he was close enough to at the moment that he felt comfortable enough with that he would, and that had taken two months and a lot of long walks away from camp, and the fact that unlike most people in camp, he actually liked being around her and sought to spend time with her. Daryl had never had a friend before, and he wasn't sure if she constituted one, but she seemed to think that she did, and he liked the idea of not being completely by himself since his brother had gone God knows where.
Juliet got up from the couch and started rummaging through cupboards. She eventually found a blanket and threw it over to the chair. She took her grey sweatshirt off before she walked over to the lights. As she did her purple t-shirt came up a little with it, enough so the long, deep scar on her right hip was visible for a few seconds. She switched the light off, and through the dark he could just make her out feeling her way over to the chair and settling down in it, legs tucked under herself.
Juliet
Juliet awoke, she assumed the next morning. It was difficult to tell; they were underground and no light was coming in, but she felt well rested and fairly hung-over. Drinking games in college had not prepared her for drinking with a redneck who had probably been brought up on Moonshine instead of orange juice.
That same redneck was still asleep on the couch near her, she realised, remembering how she had argued with her mother before coming in here and drunkenly spilling her sorrows to Daryl. That was probably worse than getting so drunk in the first place. She hated getting emotional around other people, although Daryl had been oddly sweet to her. She just hoped he didn't mention it again, being such an emotional drunk didn't put her in a great light.
She left the room quietly, careful not to wake him up and went out in to the hall. The lights were too bright out here, and it still seemed like night because of the lack of natural light. She made her way to the kitchen and found most of the others already up.
"Hangover?" T-Dog asked her as she sat down.
"A little." She looked over at Glenn who had his head in his hands, groaning, swearing every so often that he would never drink again. She forced herself not to laugh. "Glenn's not doing so well, huh?" T-Dog grinned and shook his head.
"Not too pleased with you and Daryl for getting him here either."
"He chose to drink, we merely encouraged it."
"Sure, blame him. Anyway, do you want eggs?"
"I'm good with a black coffee if you want to make me one of those."
"Sure."
She sat on the counter drinking the coffee he made her, chatting to him as he cooked the eggs. She got down and went over to Sophia when she came in.
"Hey Soph, you sleep well?" Sophia nodded. "Look, I'm sorry we weren't getting along too well yesterday, it's my fault, not yours. I promise not to do it again." Sophia grinned and gave her a hug before she went to get her eggs and wandered over to sit with Carl. She saw Carol looking over but she didn't acknowledge her.
It was awful and she knew she was making things worse by doing it, but in some ways she wanted Sophia to blame her for everything that had happened. Now, with her father absent, Juliet kept feeling as though everything that had happened to Sophia was her fault. She hadn't been there when Sophia needed her, hadn't gotten home quick enough to help things when they were really bad, had gone off to college when she knew everything would just get worse if she left, and yet somehow Sophia still looked at her as though she was a saint, some amazing person who she was lucky to have, and Juliet knew she wasn't. She was worthless. She hadn't been able to help Sophia when she needed her most, and she hated herself for it. She wished Sophia would hate her too. It was quite obvious to even a casual observer that Carol hated her for not being there. Sophia should too and so she had begun shutting her out again, not wanting to see the looks of adoration every time she looked at her, but also in the faint hope that ignoring her, childish as it was, might make her hate her just a little.
"Mornin'." Juliet looked up and smiled at Daryl.
"Hey." she said to him. "Are you even a little hung over?"
"Nope. Bet you are though. Lightweight."
"Shut up, I drank just as much as you did."
"Nah. I had a whole bottle while you were off on your own. I win."
"Bullshit, you did not."
"'Least neither of us is doin' as bad as Short Round over there." He said, nodding at Glenn who looked like he was about to throw up, probably not for the first time that morning. Juliet smirked and nodded, taking another sip of her coffee.
"I feel a little responsible for that mess, but also kind of proud."
"'S his fault for listenin' to us in the first place. Where's everyone gettin' the eggs from anyway?"
"T-Dog's been cooking them for ages. There's loads left if you want some."
"You want some?"
"No but feel free to get me more coffee." Begrudgingly he took her mug and went to fill it as he piled his plate with powdered eggs.
"These aren't half bad." he told her as he scooped another forkful in to his mouth.
"They look foul; I think I'm happy to pass on them."
Rick came in, followed shortly by Shane, who had noticeable scratch marks up and down his neck. She heard T-Dog question him about them and listened to him give a brush-off answer about how he did them to himself in his sleep. Jenner came in before T-Dog could ask him much more about them.
"Hey." she greeted him, met with a nod in her direction as the others said hi to him as well. Most had taken to calling him 'doc' now, which seemed oddly familiar, as though they were all comfortable around him now. Juliet was quite happy just to call him Jenner, which he seemed to prefer to his first name. It was Dale who interrupted the general chit-chat this time for something more serious.
"I don't mean to slam you with questions first thing..." he said to Jenner who looked moderately amused by this.
"But you will anyway." Jenner said. Dale looked a little embarrassed before Andrea pitched in.
"We didn't come here for the eggs."
"There's something I can show you all, if you want me to." Despite questions he gave them no further indication of what it was before all of them got up from breakfast and trooped over to the computer room he had brought them to when they arrived the evening before.
"Give me a playback of TS-19." He instructed the voice activated computer.
"Playback of TS-19." The computer announced as the screen came to life.
"Few people ever got a chance to see this." Jenner told them all as the image on screen of a head came to life, lights and impulses flashing through it. "Very few."
"Is that a brain?" Carl asked him.
"An extraordinary one." Jenner told him. He was watching the screen as closely as any of the others. Not that it matters in the end." He commanded the computer to zoom in.
"What are those lights?" Shane asked.
"It's a person's life... 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." Juleit was mesmerised by it. It was beautiful in such a strange way, and so odd to think that exactly that was in her own head somewhere. She looked over to Sophia who was stood with their mother. Both were watching closely too. Juliet wondered if Sophia would understand.
"You don't make sense ever?" Daryl asked him.
"He makes more sense than you with that grammar." Juliet chided him, not able to resist. He smirked and rolled his eyes at her. Jenner just glared at Daryl and returned to what he was saying.
"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." Jenner explained.
"See, that was clearer." Daryl whispered to her, and she sighed softly, trying to pay attention to the screen rather than him.
"Death? That's what this is, a vigil?" Rick asked him.
"Yes." Jenner replied simply. "Or rather the playback of the vigil."
"This person died? Who?" Andrea asked. Juliet knew Amy was not far from her mind.
"Test subject 19." Jenner told her. That wasn't who though. Obviously this person had been someone before they were something to be tested on and recorded, and she was sure Andrea wanted an answer more along those lines than what Jenner had given her. Someone who was bitten and infected... And volunteered to have us record the process. Vi, scan forward to the first event."
"Scanning to first event." The computer announced.
The impulses in the brain began to darken, something spreading from the brain stem out to the other synapses in there. It looked sinister, ugly, yet somehow still oddly compelling to watch.
"What is that?" Glenn asked.
"It invades the brain like meningitis." Jenner replied. This was the virus, what you got if you were bitten by one of the walkers. This was what had happened to Amy, to Jim, to so many other nameless individuals who now walked around unaware of who they previously were. "The adrenal glands haemorrhage, the brain goes into shutdown, then the major organs. Then death. Everything you ever were or ever will be... Gone." The brain was dark now. There were no more impulses travelling around, there was nothing. This was death, what would eventually happen to them all.
"Is that what happened to Jim?" Sophia asked them.
"Yes." Carol's reply was cold. She didn't even look down at Sophia, she was too busy staring in horror at what was happening on the screen. Andrea looked upset and Jenner gave her a look. Lori looked over to her sadly.
"She lost somebody two days ago. Her sister." Lori explained.
"It happened like this." Juliet explained a little further. Jenner nodded, and looked genuinely sympathetic to this.
"I lost somebody too. I know how devastating it is." he told Andrea before he gave the instruction to scan to the next event. "The resurrection 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 seemed to come alive again, just a little, and not with as many of the lights inside it as before. Just the brain stem seemed to light up now. None of what Jenner had pointed out as being the part which contributed to the individual, only the bare minimum of it.
"The brain come back to life?" Juliet asked.
"Only the stem." Jenner told her. "Basically gets them up and moving."
"But they're not alive?" Rick asked. He sounded almost hopeful that this was correct. If it wasn't then they all had some atoning to do.
"You tell me." Jenner said, remaining seemingly ethically impartial.
"It's nothing like before. Most of that brain is dark." Rick observed.
"Dark, lifeless, dead. The frontal lobe, the neo-cortex, the human part... That doesn't come back. The you part. Just a shell driven by mindless instinct." Suddenly, a dark object travelled through the head, down the brain, and all the lights were gone again.
"Was that a bullet?" Juliet asked. Jenner nodded.
"Vi, power down the main screen and the workstations." Vi obliged.
"You have no idea what it is, do you?" Andrea accused him.
"It could be microbial, viral, parasitic, fungal…" Jenner listed. The group just stood there in strange, lifeless horror. The scientist had no idea what this was, just what it did to the brain. All he had told them was what little hope there was if a person was bitten.
"Or the wrath of God?" Jacqui suggested. It was the first she had spoken all morning. She and Andrea looked as though they had the least hope left of anyone, though looking towards Carol, she didn't seem far off, clutching her daughter as if she was a lifeline to not allowing this all to drive her mad. She wouldn't even look at Juliet.
"There is that." Jenner didn't seem entirely convinced about this though.
"Somebody must know something." Andrea said, grasping at what little hope there was left now. "Somebody somewhere."
"There are others, right? Other facilities?" Carol pushed.
"Any others probably went the same way as this one." Juliet said quietly. Jenner nodded.
"Probably. I'm not sure."
"But you don't know? How can you not know?" Rick asked him.
"Everything went down. Communications, directives... all of it. I've been in the dark for almost a month."
"So it's not just here. There's nothing left anywhere? Nothing? That's what you're really saying, right?" Andrea sounded like she had given up entirely. Juliet wondered how many of the others felt the same. She'd never held much hope about this situation, not from the beginning, but this conformation that there really was nothing was particularly hard to stomach, if only because Sophia had held hope since she had stopped. Unless she didn't understand – and by the look on her face, she did – that hope would go pretty soon.
"Jesus." Jacqui whispered.
"Man, I'm gonna get shit-faced drunk again." Daryl cut in for the first time since the beginning of Jenner's presentation.
"Think I'll join you." Juliet said quietly.
"Count me in." Glenn said to both of them. Despite themselves, she and Glenn smiled at each other.
"Dr. Jenner, I know this has been taxing for you and I hate to ask one more question, but... That clock... It's counting down. What happens at zero?" Dale asked, walking towards it and pointing. He had been uncharacteristically quiet though everything, probably worried about Andrea, who had become rather like his adoptive daughter since they had met a couple of months ago.
"The basement generators... they run out of fuel." Jenner answered nonchalantly.
"And then?" Rick pushed. Jenner did not respond and began walking out of the room, so Rick addressed the computer.
"When the power runs out, facility-wide decontamination will occur." Vi told them. She and Glenn shared a rather worried look.
A small group decided to go down to the basement to check out the generators. Juliet wasn't sure whether she was more bothered about the counter reaching zero of the image of the restarting brain which kept playing in her head. Most of those who hadn't gone had moved in to the rec room. She kept looking over at Sophia hut never found herself quite able to go over to her and say anything.
"Ready to start drinkin'?" Daryl asked her. She nodded.
"Yeah, but I'm not going to.I'm really not sure alcohol is going to be the answer in this situation."
"That's bullshit."
"Probably, but I think I'd better… I don't know. I feel like I should say something to Sophia but I have no idea how to do that without making it worse."
"And you think I'm the right person to ask for advice?"
"Certainly. If you tell me to do something then I'll know to do the exact opposite."
"Remind me why I like you again?"
"My witticisms and charm?"
"I don't even know what one of 'em is."
"It's okay; I blame the American education system, not you."
"You're much more fun drunk."
"Screw you; I'm delightful all the time." He laughed and she shook her head, grinning.
"Not the word I'd use."
"I really don't want to find out which word you would use, do I?"
"It's probably not as bad as you think."
"I still don't wanna know." He rolled his eyes at her and she did the same, sticking out her tongue. "Okay, I'm done being mature now, I should probably go find Sophia."
"That's gonna be fun while you're sober."
"I know, right?"
She wandered off to Carol and Sophia's room. Both looked up at her when she went in and she smiled warmly at them both. It was fake, but her fake smile looked so much like her real one these days, she could barely tell the difference herself.
"How you doing, Soph?" she asked her sister. Sophia shrugged and motioned for her to sit beside her on the couch, and she obliged immediately.
"We're gonna be alright, aren't we?" Sophia asked her.
"Yeah, I promise you're gonna be okay. Whatever this is… Rick'll sort it out." Sophia looked moderately reassured by this, but only for a moment, as she began looking rather worried again when the lights turned themselves off. She squealed and threw her arms around Juliet who stood and took the pair in to the hallway to hear Lori asking about the air.
"And the light in our room." Carol chimed in.
"What's going on?" Daryl asked, approaching them. Juliet guessed that with Rick and Shane gone he was kind of the leader and protector of the group. It was initially amusing, but thinking about it he probably wouldn't do a bad job. He cared a lot more than he let on, and his will to survive was probably more than theirs. Well, more than Shane's. Rick had brought himself out of a coma and survived a city full of walkers. "Why's everything off?"
"Energy use is being prioritised." Jenner replied. He didn't sound like he cared.
"Air isn't a priority? And lights?" Dale asked. To be fair they were pretty important things, surely they should be some of the last things to be switched off. Maybe they were.
"It's not up to me." Jenner said, liked he was a complete idiot. "Zone 5 is shutting itself down."
"Hey! Hey, what the hell does that mean?" Jenner ignored Daryl and they all followed him as he walked back to the computer room. "Hey man, I'm talking to you. What do you mean it's shutting itself down? How can a building do anything?"
"You'd be surprised." Jenner said. He sounded incredibly devoid of any hope.
"Rick?" Lori said as he walked back in to the room from the other direction.
"Jenner, what's happening?" Rick asked him immediately.
"We were just going down that line of questioning ourselves." Juliet said to Rick. "Please just give us an answer."
"The system is dropping all the nonessential uses of power. 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." Not one person in the room didn't look horrified. Even Daryl, who was already pretty drunk, looked shocked. "It was the French." Jenner said after a moment.
"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 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 of fossil fuel. I mean, how stupid is that?
"Let me tell you..." Shane started to say, but Rick stopped him.
"To hell with it, Shane. I don't even care. Lori, grab our things. Everybody, get your stuff. We're getting out of here now!" Everyone seemed to oblige, all making their way to the doors when the alarm began blaring.
"What the fuck is that?" Juliet asked.
"Thirty minutes to decontamination." Vi announced, sounding annoyingly cheerful about it.
"Doc, what's going on here?" Dale tried to ask Jenner.
"Everybody, y'all heard Rick. Get your stuff and let's go! Go now! Go!" Shane commanded them.
The door locked fairly promptly after that.
"Did you just lock us in? He just locked us in!" Glenn cried. She resisted the urge to sigh. Having someone point out what was happening was not making this any better. Sophia looked like she was trying not to cry, clutching Carol. Jenner himself moved towards one computer and began recording a message. Sophia started sobbing. She ran to her and put her arms around her, and Daryl tackled Jenner, screaming at him.
"You son of a bitch!" he yelled. "You let us out of here! You lying..."Shane and T-Dog attempted to stop him, perhaps realising that Jenner was their only shot at getting out. He knew how the controls worked, therefore he could open the door.
"Hey, Jenner, open that door now." Rick attempted to command him.
"There's no point. Everything topside is locked down. The emergency exits are sealed." Jenner explained to them.
"Fucking open them then!" Juliet screamed at him as Sophia started crying louder. "Shh, you're gonna be okay. I'll get us out of here, I promise, okay sweetie? It's gonna be okay." she whispered in to her soft blonde hair.
"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.
"Yeah, we heard you say that, not they're closed, come in, spend the night, group suicide is noon sharp tomorrow!" she snapped back at him.
"What are you talking about?" Shane asked her.
"No-one around here thinks, do they? This is the CDC. They keep bad stuff here, diseases which could wipe out fucking countries if it hadn't already happened. A power failure would mean they'd have to be prevented from getting out, whatever the cost. I'm guessing in twenty seven minutes this entire place is gonna be destroyed. How am I doing so far, Jenner?"
"She's right. When that timer reaches zero H. are deployed to prevent any organisms from getting out."
"H. ?" Rick asked. Juliet didn't have an answer for this.
"Vi, define." Jenner said.
"H. - high-impulse thermo-baric fuel-air explosives 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. The vacuum-pressure effect ignites the oxygen between 5,000° and 6,000° and is used when the greatest loss of life and damage to structures is desired." Apparently, what of this Sophia was able to understand upset her even more. Juliet was trying very hard to keep it together herself.
"It sets the air on fire. No pain. An end to sorrow, grief... Regret. Everything."
For a moment Juliet thought of everything she regretted. Everything that had happened to Sophia that she hadn't been there to stop, and how even with that weighted on her shoulders, this didn't seem like the better option. Easier, certainly, but not better. She wanted to make it right with Sophia, with Carol, make amends with them both and have a stable family now Ed was gone. Ed was finally gone, and it couldn't end like this. She wouldn't let it.
Some of them began trying to break the door down with axes, but it was useless. It was reinforced steel, most likely, and their axes wouldn't stand a damn chance.
"Open the damn door!" Daryl yelled for what seemed like the hundredth time.
"You should've left well enough alone. It would've been so much easier." Jenner sighed, already contentedly just sitting there, awaiting his imminent death.
"Easier for who?" Lori asked him. She was not ready to give up.
All of you. You know what's out there... A short, brutal life and an agonizing death. Your... your sister... what was her name?" Jenner asked Andrea. It seemed cruel, and rather a low blow to target the woman still clearly devastated about her sister's death.
"Amy." Andrea replied. There was a fondness in her voice, coupled with great sadness.
"Amy." Jenner repeated. "You know what this does. You've seen it." He turned to Rick. "Is that really what you want for your wife and son?
"I don't want this." Rick told him firmly. Those working on the door seemed ready to give up in a moment.
"And you." Jenner was looking at Juliet now. Cruelly, she thought that if he was targeting what he thought were weak links, while Andrea in her grief addled state was a good choice, she and Rick were poor ones, and he would have been much better targeting Lori and Carol in their respective families if he insisted on doing so. "Is the life out there really what you want for your little sister?"
"No. I wanted her to grow up and have a job, a family, whatever she wanted. I wanted her to be happy and lead a normal life, but I'd take filling her life with those walkers and still having her walking this earth than letting it end now and not even giving her a chance any day."
The few working on the door were fighting amongst themselves now which seemed ridiculous and was helping even less. Jenner joined in, so naturally Daryl ran at him with the axe he was holding.
"Daryl, stop, it's useless with him here but we're even more screwed if he's gone."
"You do want this." He was speaking to Rick again. Everyone looked rather confused. "Last night you said you knew it was just a matter of time before everybody you loved was dead." Jenner clarified, looking annoyingly smug.
"You really said that? After all your big talk?" Shane asked him.
"I had to keep hope alive, didn't I?"
"There is no hope. There never was."
"There's always hope. Maybe it won't be you, maybe not here, but somebody somewhere..."
Sophia looked up at her and immediately, Juliet knew what she wanted.
"Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all." Juliet whispered to her. For the first time since that morning Sophia smiled, not for very long albeit and hugged her closer.
"What part of "everything is gone" do you not understand?" Andrea demanded of him.
"Listen to your friend. She gets it." Jenner advised. "This is what takes us down. This is our extinction event."
"This isn't right." Carol said suddenly. The entire group stared at her, just like they had when Juliet had spoken up in front of Jim. "You can't just keep us here."
"One tiny moment... a millisecond. No pain." Jenner told herm as though that made everything he was doing so much better. It disgusted her that Jenner thought he was doing them some kind of favour by forcing them to stay.
"My daughters do not deserve to die like this."
"Wouldn't it be kinder, more compassionate to just hold your loved ones and wait for the clock to run down?" Jenner wondered. Shane looked about ready to blow a gasket, and as his gun cocked, Juliet realised he was probably about to.
"Shane, no!" Rick pleaded, but it fell on deaf ears.
"Out of the way, Rick! Stay out of my way! Open that door or I'm gonna blow your head off. Do you hear me?!" Rick managed to stop him from doing anything stupid. He stopped still and just looked at Jenner for a long time.
"I think you're lying."
"What?"
"You're lying about no hope. If that were true, you'd have bolted with the rest or taken the easy way out. You didn't. You chose the hard path. Why?"
"It doesn't matter."
"It does." Juliet assured him. "Why would you stay if you were so sure there was nothing you could do?"
"I didn't want to. I made a promise... To her. My wife." He motioned to the large screen, and finally, they understood.
"Test subject 19 was your wife?" Lori voiced the groups shock. Jenner nodded miserably.
"She begged me to keep going as long as I could."
He continued but she didn't listen. She listened to her little sister.
"I'm scared." Sophia whispered.
"You don't have to be. I swear, we will find a way out of this. You will be okay. We'll get out and drive far away and forget we ever came here. We'll be alright. There's a way out somewhere."
"What if there's not?"
"There is."
"Let us keep trying as long as we can." Rick begged him. Jenner seemed close to conceding.
"I told you topside's locked down. I can't open those." He did however, open the first door, and Carol sobbed in relief, taking one of Sophia's hands and letting Juliet do the same. They were ushered out by everyone who had been trying the door. Daryl smiled at her as she passed.
"We're gonna get out of here, Sophia." Carol told her youngest daughter as they hurried out of the room.
They paused as Jacqui and Andrea decided to stay. Juliet was horrified about both; she was friends with Jacqui and Andrea was Amy's sister, and she felt as though she were failing her friend if she allowed her to die. If Sophia hadn't been there she would have tried, but she had to get her and Carol out of the building, and four minutes was not enough time to deal with both. In the end she would always choose Sophia over anyone.
Jenner had been right though. The top was locked, and the glass impenetrable. It seemed they had escaped one trap only to reach another.
"The glass won't break?" Sophia asked, sounding immediately terrified again.
"Rick, I have something that might help." Carol announced, reaching in to her bag.
"Carol, I don't think a nail file's gonna do it." Shane said spitefully, but she simply glared and pulled something out. Juliet was mentally cheering her on.
"Your first morning at camp, when I washed your uniform, I found this in your pocket."
"I love that you brought that with you." Juliet told her, and Carol smiled proudly as she ushered both her daughters to cover while the glass was broken out of the window.
"Give her 'ere." Daryl said. Juliet looked at him in confusion. "There's broken glass and she can't jump that anyway." Juliet and Carol let go of Sophia's hands and Daryl picked her up and jumped out holding her. They followed quickly, and Juliet kissed Sophia on top of her head quickly before running back to the truck with Daryl.
They saw Andrea and Dale running from the building. It went up just as Jenner had said it would moments later.
"What the fuck do we do now?" Daryl asked, and for once, a smartass answer did not spring to Juliet's mind.