Pulse, Cold, Arise

The large screen at the far side of the room that Jenner led them to lit up, beginning a play of what Jenner had called the TS-19, the group crowding around the room as they watched. Jamie sat on the edge of one of the chairs with her elbows leaned forward on her knees with Daryl standing beside her, his hand on the back of the chair. Her hands came up before her lips, placed together in a prayer position.

"Is that a brain?" Carl asked curiously, looking over to Jenner. The screen did indeed hold the image of a human, translucent except for the vital nerves, veins and organs inside, from the shoulders up. The group looked up at the x-ray looking image, trying to tell what it was that he was about to show them.

"An extraordinary one," Jenner answered honestly, giving Carl a faint smile. "Not that it matters in the end," he added on, speaking to everyone else as he looked back up to the main screen. Jamie looked up at the screen as it zoomed in, turning the view around until they were looking at the brain from the side, and felt a sense of being very small.

"Enhanced internal view," The computerized female voice said, echoing through the room.

"Oh, wow," she sighed out, watching as the brain was enhanced until it was showing a collection of dancing lights along connected cords. It was a beautifully strange sight, something that a person would find intriguing and wondered what it was that he or she were looking at. She was surprised that she was actually looking at a human brain before her, not a digital light show.

"What are those lights?" Shane asked from the other side of the room, his voice carrying in the silent space. Daryl looked over at the man for a moment before he glanced down at the back of Jamie's head, seeing that she was completely transfixed with what was on the screen before her. Her blonde hair was loose around her shoulders and down her back, having dried through breakfast to fall into the natural wave that she complained so much about.

"It's a person's life; experiences, memories. It's everything. Somewhere in all that organic wiring, in all those ripples of light, is you." Daryl reached his hand forward to grip Jamie's shoulder with a firm but gentle grasp, her own hand rising up to clasp overtop of his without looking away from the screen. "The thing that makes you unique and human," Jenner explained, looking around at all of the people throughout the room. Unique, indeed.

His eyes lingered for the second time at the odd couple that sat off to the right of the room, seeing their intertwined fingers atop her right shoulder. They didn't look at one another, they didn't say a word, but they physically showed that they were there. He turned to look back at the screen, his own heart clenching in his chest as he watched those ripples of light; of life.

"You don't make sense, ever," Daryl said from behind Jamie, glancing at the doctor.

"Those are synapses," he clarified, "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." Jay's hand tightened on top of Daryl's at the man's words, Daryl's own muscles tensing slightly at the word.

"Death?" Rick asked, stepping forward toward Jenner, still looking at the screen. "That's what this is? A visual?

"Yes," Jenner mumbled back, his eyes locked on the human brain that they were watching, all of the lights flashing about. "Or rather, the playback of the visual."

"This person died?" Andrea asked, her eyes filled with pain. She was clearly still thinking of her sister as she watched the lights of life inside the human brain, thinking of Amy's lose life. "Who?"

"Test subject 19," Jenner answered automatically. "Someone who was bitten and infected, and volunteered to have us record the process." Jamie's eyes fell closed as she tried not to imagine the person that had been recorded, slowly dying in the painful way that Jim had been as they recoded it. It must have been unbearable. Not only for the subject, but for the ones who had to watch. "Vi, scan forward to the first event!"

"Scanning to first event."

Daryl and Jamie both watched, their faces drawn into frowns, as the screen zoomed out to look at the side of the person's head again, showing the brain still. The lights around the center of the brain began to fade away, turning black inside the soft tissue. The person was lying still, but they knew that it wasn't going to be that way for long. Unless they were unconscious throughout the process, they would move around at the pain and discomfort at least slightly.

"What is that?" Glenn asked this time, voicing the same question that was going through everyone's minds.

"They're dying," Jamie whispered softly, not even sure if anyone heard her. If they had, no one reacted to it.

"It invades the brain like meningitis," Jenner was saying, pointing up at the screen as he spoke. He almost looked like a professor, giving a lecture on some type of human sickness. The sight of the dying brain tugged on all of their hearts, clutching at their chests until it was almost hard to breathe. Daryl didn't look effected by the sight, but all that he could think of was that this could be what it could be like for Jamie, this could be what it could be like for him. The subject on the screen was beginning to gasp for air, shifting around slightly as they died. "The brain goes into shut down, then the major organs, then death."

The brain went black, all light moving about inside ceasing.

Jamie leaned back in the chair that she was in, placing a hand over her mouth as her eyes stung. She fought the tears hard, taking in a deep breath to calm herself down. Daryl squeezed her shoulder in a sign of comfort, the only thing that he could offer, but never looked away from the screen. She wiped at her eyes to remove the building tears, letting out a long exhale that trembled at the end.

"Everything that you ever were or ever will be…gone."

Jamie pulled herself up from the chair that she was in, closing her eyes a moment and turning away from the others. Her back throbbed slightly at the faint soreness from leaning back against the chair, but it wasn't enough that she felt she needed to take anything for it. The wine had allowed to her sleep soundly the night before, only waking in the morning when Daryl began to pock and prod her to get her up so he could go to the bathroom. She had fallen asleep lying atop him and it was comfortable for her, but she was pressing her hip against his bladder.

Daryl's hands grasped the back of her pants and tugged her toward him when she went to walk away, pressing a discrete but meaningful kiss against her temple. She let out a breath of air and tried to keep herself in check. She could hear Jenner and the others talking behind her, Daryl's cheek against one of her ears muffled the voices. "That'll never happen to you, Babe."

She nodded her head in understanding, but the unsettling feeling in her gut made it hard to truly believe. She knew that Daryl would do everything in his power to make sure that no walkers got close to either of them, but there was still only so much that one man could do. She could take care of herself perfectly fine, but there was still that slight chance that something would go wrong.

"Scan to the second event," Jenner called out, drawing the couple's attention back toward the main screen.

"Scanning to second event."

Jamie stepped up to one of the work stations, leaning her hips against the tabletop as her arms raised up to the top shelf-like surface that was above the computer screens. She felt Daryl's hands slide down into the sides of her pants, his fingers pressing down in soothing circles. His chest pressed against her back, his breath ghosting her neck. She took a deep breath to push down her body's reaction to his touch and close proximity, trying not to think on the fact that his fingers were in her pants.

"The resurrection times vary wildly," Jenner explained, crossing his arms over his chest and facing the screen. "I have reports of it happening in as little as three minutes. The longest we heard of was eight hours. In the case of this patient it was two hours, one minute, seven seconds."

Jamie looked over to where Jenner was standing, so concentrated on the screen. There was something about this subject that changed his behaviour. He never really had acted normally around them, but he was showing a type of connection as he spoke of this one person. He would probably know the time no matter who it was, but the way that he told them the resurrection time spoke of hidden emotions.

"Whoa," Daryl mumbled against her hair as a faint red light began to glimmer in the center of the brain, near the base. The sparking lights were not quite like the ripples that they had seen before, not only because they were red and not blueish white but because they were faint and didn't reach the entire brain.

"It restarts the brain?" Lori asked in shock, looking over to Jenner.

"No," He denied, finally turning away from the screen to look back at Lori. "Just the brain stem. Basically, it gets them up and moving."

"But they're not alive?" Rick asked. Jay could understand how it was hard for him to think that someone who was actually living was killing all of those people, eating them. Also, all of the walkers that they had killed until that point were alive? If didn't restart the whole brain, but were they still alive because at least one part of it was?

"You tell me."

"It's nothing like before, most of that brain is dark."

"Dark, lifeless, dead," Jenner said, agreeing. "The frontal cortex—the human part—that doesn't come back. The 'you' part." The person on the screen began to move around slightly, their mouth opening as they began to draw their first breaths. Turning from side to side to side, they squirmed on whatever surface they had been laid on, shifting about as it awoke. "Just a…shell. Driven by mindless instinct." Something appeared at the top of the screen, bright in the x-ray view that they had. A light flashed and a path was driven through the head of the person, straight through from the forehead to the base of the skull.

Jamie jumped as her heart felt as though it stopped for a moment.

"What was that?" Carol asked in surprise, not expecting the sudden image.

"He shot his patient in the head," Andrea rasped out, sounding tired; defeated. "Didn't you?" However, Jenner didn't answer, but only ordered the computers to power down. The room darkened slightly as several sources of light turned black, shutting off the computers all around the room as well as the large image of the dead walker. "You have no idea what it is, do you?"

All eyes were on Jenner, some holding interest and others nothing but despair. Andrea's held accusation.

"It could be microbial, viral, parasitic, fungal," Jenner listed off, proving to them all that even with the fact that he'd been working on something, there was nothing more that he could show or tell them about what had ended the world.

"Or the wrath of God?" Jacqui asked, nearly drawing a laugh from Jamie's throat. She had never been a strong believer in the Almighty Lord, but now she was firmly convinced that there was no God. And if there was, he had a fucking twisted sense of humour.

"There are others, right? Other facilities?"

When Jenner told them that the epidemic had been worldwide, in not so many words, Jamie assumed that Andrea finally cracked. The way that the woman just seemed to wilt and shake her head in disbelief was concerning. The others were all unsettled to, but it wasn't like it was unexpected. What were the chances of it only being where they were, that it was confined to their country and not the whole globe? It was a hard blow to their hope, knowing for sure that the rest of the world was down as well, but it wasn't a total surprise.

"Man, I'm gonna get shit faced drunk," Daryl said as he leaned his head on her shoulder, "Again."

"Doctor Jenner, I know this has been taxing for you and I'd hate to ask one more question, but," Dale started, stepping around through the tables and stations with his eyes fixed on the far wall. "That clock. It's counting down." Jamie and Daryl both turned their attention toward the clock that Dale had pointed to, the large, bright red numbers reading 1:00:01, 1:00:00, 0:59:59. "What happens at zero?"

"The," Jenner starting, looking off as though he were trying to think of a lie, "Basement generators they run out of fuel." He blurted out in one fast sentence, leaving the group momentarily stunned. The intelligent Doctor Jenner was getting nervous? If that wasn't a cause to worry, Jamie didn't entirely want to find out what was.

Rick asked, "And then?" But Jenner didn't pay him any attention and began to walk off, leaving the group behind. "Vi, what happens when the power runs out?" Rick called out, looking around as he waited for the mechanical voice.

"When the power runs out," The computerized female voice repeated, "Facility wide decontamination will occur."

"That shit don't sound too good," Jamie said loud enough for everyone to hear, looking at the ceiling in a type of sarcastic prayer. "Fuck," she said much more quietly, only Daryl able to understand her but the others were able to comprehend when she turned sharply away from them, her hands rising to her hair.

No one lingered long, breaking off to their own groups. Most of the guys went down toward the generators to see what they could do or if they could figure out what was going to happen at zero; what was going to happen to them at zero. The women took themselves and the children to their rooms, Dale escorting an emotionally cracked Andrea back toward her room. Jamie leaned forward to hit her head on the top of one of the work stations once everyone else had left, only Daryl standing behind her.

"Come on, none of that," he said as he helped her straighten again, the hit on the table not even hard enough to redden the skin. She looked more irritated the depressed, unlike all of the others, and he was glad that he didn't need to deal with an emotionally traumatized Jamie—he had had to do that when her parents died, it was bad enough then and he didn't care for a refresher.

Jamie shrieked faintly in surprise when he knelt down and slipped an arm between her legs, holding her onto his shoulder as he kept a hold on one of her thighs so she didn't slip. She cussed him out at first, breathless from the sudden change in position. She didn't demand to be put down, already knowing that he would simply ignore her or do something to shut her up. Probably slap her on the ass if she knew him as well as she said she did.

"Bastard," she growled out as he started down the hallway that held all of the rooms they occupied, no one else standing around. Several doors were open but empty, belonging to the men that had gone down to the basement. He made sure not to knock her against the doorframe as he stepped into their room, closing and locking the door behind them, before he threw Jamie down onto the couch, one of her legs draping over the back.

She gasped at the sudden change in position, her hair throw up over her head, draping across the armrest of the three seated couch. She looked bewildered for a moment before her eyes slanted over to Daryl as he picked up the bottle of alcohol that he had brought with them to their room. She watched his throat as he took deep swallows of the amber liquid before he placed the bottle on the table in front of the couch, pressed a knee on the edge of the far cushion before he leaned his body over hers, the strong smell of the drink on his breath.

"You really are gonna get shit faced drunk?" she asked softly, looking into his blue eyes. They appeared darker than normal, but she wasn't sure if that was because his pupils seemed larger or the lighting in the room played with the colour.

"You could say that," he growled back, leaning down to catch her lips as he nipped sharply on the delicate skin. Her breath hitched at the feel, tasting the alcohol on his tongue as it swiped the top of her mouth. Her hands gripped at his shirt and pulled him closer to her, tugging him down until they were pressed flush together.

Even with their eyes closed, they could both tell when the room went pitch black around them.

Daryl pulled back, looking around. There was still light coming into their room from under the door to the hallway, but all of their lights had completely gone out. "The fuck?" he muttered to himself as he got to his feet, hearing Jamie quickly do the same. Jamie marched right to the door and unlocked it, pulling it open and peaking her head out. Others were all doing the same, glancing about.

"Why's the air off?" Lori asked, drawing Jamie's attention toward the end of the hall that Jenner was walking from. "And the lighting?"

"What's going on?" Daryl asked as he leaned around Jamie, wrapping on arm around her shoulders with the other holding the bottle of whisky again. "Why'd everything turn off?" he asked, looking down toward where Andrea and Dale were standing in their doorways. Jenner snatched the bottle from his hand as he was passing, getting Daryl's full attention.

"Energy use is being prioritized."

They all followed after Jenner as he made his way toward the work area again, taking large gulps from the bottle that he had taken from Daryl. Jamie jogged to keep up with her boyfriend when he ran after Jenner, demanding to know what was going on. His accent had thickened in his angered and inebriated state. Her heart rate was beginning to pick up as she followed in a fast stride after Daryl and Jenner, the others bringing up the end with a march.

I know this update took longer and I'm sorry. I won't be able to update as fast as I have been because there's school back on and I'm got assignments coming out my ears. I'll do my best, but there's only so much that I can do while also keeping pace with some of my other stories.

Please, please, please review!

Chapter 16 – It's In The Air

"Back up!" Rick yelled as he pushed Daryl backward, away from the insane doctor. Jamie continued to pull him until he was backed to the railing of the work station, her hands on his chest as she kept him where he was. He never looked away from Jenner, the murderous intent lingering in his eyes, as he breathed heavily. Jamie knew that if he was going to follow through with killing Jenner then he would use the knife that was strapped to his belt, or even steal the one in the holster on her thigh.

"Look at me," Jamie ordered, taking Daryl's face in her hand and forced him to stop looking over her shoulder, getting into the view path of Jenner so that she could distract him at least enough to calm him down a bit. "Look at me, Daryl." His blue eyes landed on her face after a moment more of resistance, his blue eyes clashing with her golden hazel ones. "What was it that you told me when I got sick and scared because I had to go to the hospital?" She asked softly, stroking his cheeks before sliding them down to his neck.

He didn't say anything at first, just breathed heavily through his nose. "Angels can't die," he finally mumbled in response, the hot breath fanning over her face. She smiled softly when he finally spoke and lifted her hands to smooth his hair, damp with sweat. Leaning forward, Jamie pressed her forehead against his for a moment, their lips less than an inch apart.

"Guardian Angels can't, either," She whispered before pressing a kiss to his lips, only briefly but enough to bring him back to himself.