(Anne Marshall belongs to AquaDestinysEmbrace!)
(I DO NOT own The Walking Dead, Code Lyoko or any of the names or brands that appear aside from my OCs!)
The next morning after the walkers attacked the camp, the survivors were all busy cleaning up the area and disposing of all of the walker corpses they could find, which they did so by burning them in a few piles of timber and other walker corpses. At least three dozen walkers were pacified during the attack and they thankfully succeeded in keeping the camp safe from further harm, but the damage was noticeable and very tragic as they had lost a lot of people last night...
A LOT of people...
Aelita walked through the scene of the battle last night and her heart completely sank when she saw a line of some of the dead camp members, all of whom were killed last night by the walkers and all of whom had to be pacified with a knife to the head just to make sure they wouldn't come back. Aelita even recognized a few of them... One of whom was a man who cheerfully greeted her a good morning only yesterday, and another was a woman who shared a friendly conversation with her the previous morning as well. There was many others that she recognized as well, and it was disturbing to imagine that they were all still healthy and completely alive a mere twenty-four hours earlier...
Aelita had to struggle to hold back her tears as she saw all of their bodies, and she almost openly broke down when she saw T-Dog going through the grim task of stabbing a few in their heads so they won't become walkers. Those poor, poor people... Aelita continued walking, noticing that several of the other Lyoko Warriors were taking part in the tasks that needed to be done. Patrick, Alexandr, Miranda and Verity were all helping to hoist walker corpses into the burning piles, and Aelita noticed that Kyra and Charles were busy checking the corpses to make sure if any were still truly a threat. It was heartbreaking that she and her friends were now forced to try and survive things like this...
As she walked, Aelita finally noticed that Ed Peletier was one of those who were killed by the walkers last night, as she saw that Carol was crying over his harshly-mutilated corpse below her. Aelita herself only felt bad for one of them. In any event, the pink-haired girl resumed her trek through the camp until she noticed that a few of her friends, her brothers and her boyfriend were standing by one of the trucks. Aelita decided to walk over to them to check up on them and see if they were still doing okay in regards to the events of the previous night...
"Hello guys..." Aelita somberly greeted.
"Hey, Aelita..." Anne sighed with an equally somber tone.
Jeremie leaned over to give Aelita a hug in an effort to cheer her up at least a little bit, and after he released her both Dylan and Chase walked up to give her a pair of hugs as well. This all had a moderate effect as although Aelita hugged each of them back and smiled a little bit, the smile soon faded away. Aelita was fully aware that they took a lot of losses last night and it was apparent to everyone that this camp just wasn't safe anymore... If they stayed near Atlanta for any longer then their lives were at risk. They had to think of something before more of those undead bastards could show up.
"I can't believe what happened last night, guys..." Rebecca sighed. "One second we were all hanging around by the campfire and having a really good time, then the next second was hell on earth..." she added.
"Last night was so fucked up..." Chase commented, mournfully looking over at all of the corpses.
"That's the biggest understatement of the decade..." Anne stated with a mournful and sad sigh.
The others nodded in agreement with Anne as they continued to watch everything happening around them. There was dozens of corpses everywhere, literally the stuff that nightmares are made from... The teens hoped that they would never have to see anything like this ever again, but deep down they all still knew that situations like this may happen again in the future. Last night was proof...
The group then saw Odd, Yumi and Ulrich beginning to approach them after dealing with some walkers that were still moving on the ground. If it wasn't for those three and the others in the rescue group, the camp may have been lost to the walkers last night.
"Hey guys... Thanks for getting back here in time last night." Jeremie expressed his gratitude to his three friends.
"No problem, Einstein... Happy to help." Ulrich nodded before he looked back at the corpses.
"Absolutely. We've always got your guys's back." Odd stated with a small but mournful smile.
The group was completely thankful towards the three teens for how they helped the camp survive last night and then they all continued to look at their surroundings, mourning the losses they took last night. Andrea was still quietly crying over her sisters corpse, not stopping at all ever since Amy died in her arms. Andrea just simply wasn't prepared to pacify her yet, and the scene itself was purely heartbreaking to all who witnessed it...
If XANA truly did cause this outbreak... If he actually caused all of these terrible things to happen... If he killed all of these people and so many others like them then the Lyoko Warriors would strip the fucker's supercomputer for spare parts if they ever managed to get back home.
The teens continued to stand in silence as they looked around at their surroundings. They witnessed as walker after walker was hoisted into a nearby burn pile. The smoke and the stench and the charred corpses was all absolutely terrible. No more, no less...
"What's up with the bruise on Aelita's face? Did she fall or something?" Yumi suddenly asked.
Aelita awkwardly averted her gaze and she gently placed her hand onto the bruised spot on her jaw, gently rubbing it as she looked down at the ground.
"Um... Ed hit Carol down in the quarry yesterday, then he hit me when I tried to stop him..." Aelita explained.
Yumi, Odd and Ulrich were all shocked to hear about what happened to Aelita. That wife-beating, obnoxious, rude, crude piece of shit hillbilly Ed Peletier actually hit Aelita in the face while they were gone?! What the hell?!
"What?! He actually hit you?!" Odd gasped with pure shock.
His pink-haired friend nodded and removed her hand so as to show Odd, Yumi and Ulrich her bruise some more. Chase and Dylan could only look on with deep frowns on their faces as they stared at their sister's bruise on her jaw, and although Chase was absolutely not a sadistic person in any form a small part of him couldn't help but feel a tiny bit glad that Ed Peletier wasn't around to hurt Aelita anymore, as Ed was one of the ones who was killed by the walkers last night. Yumi, Odd and Ulrich were quickly informed of this fact by their friends, so unfortunately all of their plans for revenge on Ed for Aelita's sake had to be permanently shelved. Aelita managed to convince the three to calm down about the incident and she also told them that the issue was already dealt with, so reluctantly her three friends allowed their mutual anger at Ed to subside and they just focused on moving on.
"So... I've also been meaning to ask you three about something..." Dylan began to question. "I noticed that Merle wasn't with you guys when you came back last night. And that bag of guns didn't look as full as Rick described... What happened out there in Atlanta?" he wondered.
Odd, Yumi and Ulrich glanced at each other for a moment as they remembered the events which occurred after Chase and Anne left to return to the camp. They all looked back at the teens in front of them just a moment or two later.
"Well... Glenn got kidnapped for a little bit." Yumi began to explain. "Daryl got the crap kicked out of him by some Hispanic people, but we caught one of them and Daryl shot another in the ass with his crossbow. We questioned the man we caught and we found that Glenn was taken back to his group. It turned out they were all living in a functioning senior center." she added.
"A functioning senior center?" Jeremie inquired with a feeling of surprise.
"Yeah... Weird, right?" Odd shrugged. "Anyway, we literally got in a Mexican standoff for a bit once we got there and the leader of the group, a guy named 'Guillermo', actually refused to trade his man for Glenn! We had to leave!" he said.
"Eventually we decided that we were going to get Glenn back one way or another, so we went straight back to the senior center and got in another Mexican standoff. I think it was Guillermo's grandmother who suddenly came out of the building and... well, I guess she was senile or something as she didn't care about the weapons." Yumi added.
"She even thought Rick was still a policeman." Ulrich added to the story.
"Right." Yumi nodded as she heard that addition. "Eventually we were led inside the building and Guillermo decided to just give Glenn back to us, no trouble. Rick decided that we should give his group half of the guns and ammo in that dufflebag so as to help them out a little bit." she stated.
The others were very surprised to hear this. The rescue group just gave away half of the guns in the bag to some complete strangers? The group was absolutely surprised but none of the listeners whatsoever were angry at hearing this. What the rescue group did was a very generous thing, and generosity was definitely going to be in very short supply amongst the entire human race for the foreseeable future. It felt good to be able to help some people in need... it was a nice reminder that at least some goodness still exists in this mess.
A lot of the camp was still busy cleaning up from the effects of what happened last night. The stench of burning walker flesh filled the air and the mood was obviously very dark and somber for everyone in the camp, especially for the people tasked with taking care of the bodies. It was incredibly grim...
The task of having to gather the corpses of the deceased camp members was the absolute worst of it. These people were breathing and were human beings just yesterday, but now they were as dead as the walkers.
It was so depressing...
Kyra wiped some sweat from her brow after she finished pacifying a dead female camp member. Kyra even recognized this dead woman as a person who... well, to be blunt, she was a huge bitch to basically everyone in the camp. Nothing like how Ed Peletier was, but she still didn't deserve this fate. No one deserved this kind of fate... Charles dug his knife into the skull of the corpse next to the one Kyra just pacified moments earlier, and then he continued to repeat the process down the row of corpses.
The red-headed Canadian girl could easily tell that her Australian friend was struggling to pacify these walkers, so she sheathed her knife for the time being and she walked up to Charles, gently pulling him in for a warm hug as she rested her head on his shoulder.
"Are you okay, Charlie...?" Kyra quietly asked as she held him, using a nickname she often gave him.
"No, not really..." Charles sighed as he returned the hug to her. "Christ, Kyra, this is terrible... Hell, this is just fucking insanity. We knew these people and now they're... fuck, they're just dead now! Because of the walkers!"
Kyra nodded in agreement as she continued to hold Charles in an effort to give him a little emotional support during this time. Both of them closed their eyes and they continued to hold each other, both secretly enjoying the embrace of the other.
"I'm so sorry, Charlie... I wish you didn't have to deal with any of this. Hell, I wish all of us didn't have to... But we need to keep at it. We can't let any of them come back, okay...?" Kyra asked as she looked up at his face.
"This just seems fucking hopeless right now, Kyra... If XANA really did cause this mess and if he actually did start the outbreak, then that means we failed to stop him. We're the Lyoko Warriors and we actually failed to-"
Kyra immediately pressed her finger right onto Charles's lips in an effort to get him to shut up, as she didn't want to risk anyone in the camp hearing about XANA. The last thing anyone in the camp needed to hear was about that monstrous AI. Their fight against XANA and them being the Lyoko Warriors in general was the biggest secret any of them has ever had in their entire lives, and they absolutely couldn't risk letting anyone else outside of the group know about it.
Only Jeremie, Aelita, Odd, Ulrich, Yumi, Dylan, Chase, Miranda, Jennifer, Rebecca, Kyra, Charles, Alexandr, Robert, Verity and Patrick were trusted with that secret amongst each other... the surviving Lyoko Warriors. Absolutely no one else could know this secret as it was far too dangerous. Anyway, Kyra gently pulled her finger back from Charles's lips after he shut up and realized that he needed to be careful with what he said. She was very thankful that no one else around seemed to hear XANA's name be mentioned...
"Just stick with us, okay...? That's all I'm trying to say... We're all here if you need a shoulder to lean on. Myself included." Kyra kindly offered with a small smile.
Charles warmly smiled back at Kyra and he gently took her hands into his, both of the teens intertwining their fingers. Neither of them had ever dated each other or even asked to do so, but admittedly they did find themselves to be very close in their friendship. Intimate, even. The other Lyoko Warriors pointed that out far more than once but neither of them cared too much about that. They just clicked really well together...
"I'll keep that in mind... Thank you, Kyra." Charles warmly replied.
"It isn't a problem..." Kyra smiled as they continued to hold hands.
Unfortunately the sweet moment between this boy and girl had to be interrupted as the terrible stench of burning walker corpses hit their nostrils once more, causing their smiles to immediately fade away and their moods to drop considerably once more due to their mutual disgust. The pair separated and they quickly went back to the grim task they were originally doing, although Charles was definitely grateful towards Kyra for checking up on him. However, neither of the teens noticed that just a short distance away, someone had actually overheard them.
Anne Marshall.
Anne was sitting against a nearby car at the moment as she was taking a short break from helping other camp members with the bodies, as it was both absolutely exhausting and absolutely depressing. Kyra didn't notice her because she was sitting on the other side of the vehicle and out of view, but unfortunately for her Anne heard every bit of their conversation despite shushing up Charles.
'XANA?' 'Lyoko Warriors?' What did those terms even mean? How were they related to the outbreak? Anne was astonished and confused... She was definitely going to have to ask about that later.
Meanwhile, Yumi had noticed that Andrea was still cradling Amy's corpse. She was worried about the poor woman, as if Amy turned there could be a risk that Andrea would be bitten as well. The last thing the camp needed at the moment was yet another one of their own being lost to the undead. Yumi walked away from the group at the truck and she cautiously began to approach the grieving sister, her heart breaking as she took in the sight in front of her.
"Hey, Andrea...? I really don't want to be the one to ask this, but... do you think that maybe it's time to-" Yumi tried to say.
Yumi's eyes widened with shock as Andrea almost immediately turned and aimed her handgun straight at the Japanese girl's face. Several others in the camp noticed this and they were all just as shocked as Yumi, and Ulrich was so taken aback by this that he even unsheathed his sword and prepared to use it against Andrea if she even dared to try and harm his girlfriend. A few of the other Lyoko Warriors also readied their knives or their handguns just in case if anything actually happened. Thankfully Yumi got the message and she raised her hands up as she cautiously began to back away.
"Okay, Andrea... I'll go... no trouble." Yumi said in a gentle tone so as to not accidentally set the woman off.
Andrea continued to aim her gun at Yumi for a few more moments before she silently set it back down in her holster, much to everyone else's relief. Andrea didn't say a single word at all as she turned her attention back down to her freshly-deceased sister. She'll put her down when she's ready to do it... Ulrich, very happy and very relieved that Yumi was no longer in any danger, sheathed his sword for another day. The other Lyoko Warriors sheathed and holstered their weapons as well.
Yumi lowered her hands and she immediately walked back to Jeremie, Aelita, Ulrich, Chase and Dylan. Odd was now away from them at the moment as Miranda had asked him to help load some walker corpses onto a burn pile. Alexandr also walked over to be a part of the conversation what was obviously going to happen. Aelita immediately pulled her Japanese friend in for a hug as she was also very relieved that Andrea didn't kill her, and Yumi hugged her pink-haired friend back for several moments before the two finally separated.
"I'm worried about Andrea..." Yumi commented to the others with a sigh. "Amy still hasn't been pacified. That girl could come back at any time." she stated,
The group took another glance over at Andrea and saw she was still cradling her sister like how she has been doing non-stop since last night. All of them pitied the woman and her sister and all of them hoped that Amy would be dealt with as peacefully as possible... Alexandr and Jennifer both walked over to the group to converse with them, although their desire for socialization almost entirely evaporated when they also noticed Andrea and Amy.
"Those poor girls..." Jennifer sighed with sadness at the sight.
As she stared at the scene that was in front of her, Jennifer couldn't help but be reminded of her own sister, Sarah. She had absolutely no clue if Sarah was even alive anymore due to the outbreak, but despite their rocky relationship over the years she truly did hope that Sarah made it out of this mess with their parents back in Texas. But in all likelihood they were all probably dead by now...
"We could end it. Before it begins, I mean..." Alexandr suddenly and grimly told the others. "Amy's a risk right now, guys. We can't risk Andrea not doing what has to be done... If Amy isn't pacified then another might die. We can take the shot all the way from out here..."
"What are you saying?" Jeremie asked with visible confusion as to what he was suggesting.
"What do you think?" Alexandr challenged with a solemn sigh.
The others around Alexandr were absolutely shocked at what they just heard. Alexandr... he was suggesting that they pacify Amy themselves right in front of her grieving sister? Despite what Andrea may say or do if such a drastic and dramatic measure was taken? What on earth had gotten into him just now?!
"Jesus, Alex! That is... I don't even know what to say to something like that!" Aelita protested with both shock and disgust.
"There's no way I'm doing that. No question about it..." Yumi added with a frown.
Alexandr was taken aback by the sudden reactions of disgust and shock around him. He believed that he had a legitimate point! If Amy was allowed to turn then the risk for someone else in camp being bitten and falling to the same disease was massive... Alexandr simply sighed and shamefully lowered his head, deciding to drop this for now as he didn't want to get into an argument with his closest friends. The situation with Amy will be dealt with one way or another when the time came. The others all picked up on the shame that Alexandr was feeling.
"Look, we know that Amy is going to have to be dealt with. We totally agree with you on that, Alex." Dylan stated. "But we are not going to do a thing unless Andrea says that we can. And if anyone's going to pacify her own sister, then it'll be her." he added.
"Exactly." Aelita added with a nod. "We all know you mean well and we absolutely are thankful for that. But what happens with Amy is not going to be decided by us. And we certainly are not going to take a potshot at her."
Alexandr raised his head again and after another moment of thought he silently nodded in agreement. They were right on that matter no matter if his point was legitimate or not. Andrea will deal with Amy when the time came and it was no one else's business to get involved unless there was a true emergency... Unfortunately their attention immediately went to something else as they all noticed that both Morales and Daryl were taking one of the camp member's corpses and dragging it straight towards the burn pile, much to the group's horror. They were fine with burning a dead camp member?! The fires were for the dead walkers, not for the people who died last night! The group immediately ran to see why they were doing this, and Glenn also ran over to the scene as he happened to notice it from a short distance away.
"What are you doing!? They don't go there..." Chase stated with a frown.
"Who cares. They're dead anyway..." Daryl coldly dismissed as he continued to drag the corpse.
Much of the group was horrified and infuriated that these two would desecrate the remains of their fellow camp members like this. Daryl attempting to do something this bad was understandable since he was always a colossal prick, but Morales as well?! What the hell was he thinking?!
"STOP!" Aelita angrily shouted at the pair.
Daryl and Morales finally stopped dragging the dead camp member and the pair both looked up at the angry group in front of them.
"Our people go over by the RV... We don't burn them! We bury them!" Glenn protested to the pair.
With a glare directed straight at the pair, Aelita gestured over towards the RV. That was where the line of the other dead camp members was currently at before their burial.
"Our people go over there..." Aelita stated with an angry glare.
Morales immediately felt guilt at how he was helping Daryl move the dead camp member towards the pile of burning walkers. He realized that their fellow survivors deserved far better than that. However, Daryl simply scoffed with annoyance at the protests of Aelita and the others.
"Whatever you say, 'pinkie'..." Daryl insultingly replied.
Aelita and the others at the back of the truck all frowned as they heard Daryl insult her, but none of them decided to try and start a fight over it. The group then proceeded to keep walking after they saw Daryl and Morales beginning to drag the body back over to the rest of the dead camp members, much to the camp's relief. Daryl was annoyed at how Aelita just basically bossed him around like that, but he continued to drag the body until they got it back to the row.
"You reap what you sow..." Daryl commented with a frown.
"You know what? Shut up, man!" Morales snapped with anger.
The two men dropped the body at the row of dead camp members and then Daryl angrily walked away and looked around at all of the other people around the camp, seeing several were already looking at him due to the scene that was caused moments earlier.
"Y'all left my brother for dead! YOU HAD THIS COMING!" Daryl shouted with fury at everyone who was listening.
The camp members watched with disgust as Daryl resumed walking away. He quickly grabbed a pickaxe to alleviate some anger by helping some of the others in pacifying all of the corpses, whether they were amongst the dead camp members or of the walkers. Sticking a pickaxe deep in their heads ought to make sure they won't come back...
As all of this happened, Anne Marshall was beginning to approach the group from another part of the camp. She still had so many questions on her mind about what she heard Kyra and Charles discussing earlier by the truck, stuff about something called 'XANA' and how they and their friends were called the 'Lyoko Warriors'? It was really strange stuff to overhear. Unfortunately, Anne had also found something that literally none of the Lyoko Warrior ever would want to be found...
Odd was using his old journal to sketch out some random doodles and thoughts to pass the time a little bit throughout the days where he and the other five original Lyoko Warriors were in the van on their trip to Atlanta. After all, he absolutely had to do something while on that highway so he wouldn't completely lose his mind. Who could possibly blame him for something as trivial and innocent as that?
But what Odd did was draw all sorts of stuff... Of course there was the little things, things such as drawings of his now-deceased dog Kiwi or doodles of both him and all of his friends in one big group drawing and even a few drawings of the many kinds of foods that he loved. But then there was also the more damning stuff such as doodles of the monsters the group commonly fought on Lyoko or of the hidden rooms in the factory, even one or two here and there that showed his digital Lyoko form and the digital Lyoko form's of all of his friends.
Most seriously, there was even actual descriptions of some of the XANA attacks that have happened over the years.
Odd had taken the journal out of his backpack in order to do another doodle or two but alas he accidentally left it sitting on a chair rather than in his backpack when he had to go and help deal with some of the walker corpses with Miranda. Anne later noticed the journal on the chair and as she thought it was a random unclaimed book and didn't realize it belonged to Odd, she took it for her own measure of doodling. Anne was actually about to set it back on the chair after she saw Odd's name written down on the inside of the front cover as a mark of his ownership, but alas she quickly noticed a drawing of a XANA symbol and her curiosity overtook her. Anne saw and read so many things in that old journal that she should simply not have been allowed to know about...
There was things described in there that were shocking. Within the book were written incidents of things such as a swarm of possessed rats attacking people and something about Kadic Academy becoming a zero-gravity zone. Things such as the school nurse kidnapping Aelita and comet VG724 forcibly having its trajectory changed by a military satellite's laser so it would break apart into a meteor shower straight towards the factory. There was also something about a wild boar chasing Jeremie and some guy named 'Jim Morales' in the forest... and also another thing involving Aelita and something called 'Code: Earth', whatever that meant.
There was also something about the diary of some guy named 'Franz Hopper' or something like that, although Anne stopped reading through the journal before she dug further into that stuff. All sorts of things were written within that journal and Odd really made a huge mistake when he accidentally left it out in the open for anyone to find like that.
On a side note, Anne was also completely floored a few minutes earlier when she read a few paragraphs of the Subdigitals band and how Aelita herself actually had the opportunity to preform an opening act for them once. Anne was both super jealous of and very happy for Aelita as she loved the Subdigitals and was a massive fan of the band and their music before the outbreak happened!
In any event, Anne was left with far more questions than answers at the moment. She absolutely had to figure out what the hell all of the stuff in this journal was about, along with exactly what Kyra and Charles were talking about earlier. The others by the truck all smiled when they saw Anne approaching them. Little did they know what she had knowledge of at the moment...
"Hey, Annie..." Dylan greeted with a smile.
Anne gave Dylan and the group a small smile as a reply, although it quickly faded due to the current circumstances around the camp. She had far too much on her mind at the moment, and right now a lot of it revolved around Kyra and Charles's chat and also all of that stuff in Odd's journal. Odd seemed like he was writing a book or something, which surprised Anne since with all due respect she didn't exactly take him for a writer.
"Hey, guys..." Anne greeted back. "Hey, I've been meaning to ask. I overheard Kyra and Charles talking about something really strange, and then I found a journal sitting around with some weird things in it that-"
However, Anne was suddenly cut off by Jacqui, who alerted everyone to something that brought both fear and absolute horror to every single last living person within the camp. She shouted something that absolutely made their situation even more precarious than before...
"A WALKER GOT HIM! A WALKER BIT JIM!"
The group at the truck was horrified and shocked at hearing this and they all immediately rushed over towards the RV, where Jim and Jacqui were originally moving dead walker corpses. A few of the other camp members and Lyoko Warriors even gathered their weapons as if Jim was already a threat, but they weren't prepared to shoot him just yet. Jacqui had already backed pretty far from Jim as the man remained standing near one of the burning piles of walkers, watching as the other camp members began to encircle him at a safe distance. Jim was apparently bit sometime last night during the attack and Jacqui saw Jim's bite while they were dragging the corpses of their dead camp members for burial, and although he begged her not to say a word about it she certainly wasn't going to let the camp be at risk!
"I'm okay... I'm okay..." Jim repeatedly and desperately began to tell the others.
"Show it to us!" Daryl demanded to see.
"Show the fucking bite, Jim!" Patrick also ordered.
Quickly running out of options as his desperation began to grow, Jim looked around for some sort of a weapon. He found one in a nearby shovel that he used to dig the holes, so he quickly picked that up and began to aim it threateningly straight at the others.
"Easy, Jim!" Shane shouted as he witnessed this.
"He's got a shovel!" Ulrich warned to the camp members.
"Careful!" Odd shouted as he tried to think of a way to get that shovel out of his hands.
Chase cautiously aimed his handgun straight at Jim's head and prepared himself to fire if the man tried to harm one of his friends. Aelita noticed this and she ran over to grab her brother's gun and to push the barrel back down towards the ground as she didn't want Jim to get shot. Anne just stood close by Dylan and Rebecca as she didn't want to risk getting hit in the face with a shovel, and basically everyone else was just trying to keep a safe distance until they could figure out what to do about this new situation.
"Jim, you don't want this! Drop the shovel!" Jennifer pleaded as she kept her hand on the grip of her holstered revolver just in case she needed to quickly pull it out and shoot him.
"Grab him!" Daryl barked to whoever was willing to do so.
Both T-Dog and Ulrich ran up behind Jim and they successfully caught him by surprise. The pair quickly grabbed onto his arms as Yumi and Kyra ran up to disarm the man, tossing the shovel to the ground a safe distance away from him. Kyra, Yumi and T-Dog all hurried away and left Ulrich to put Jim in a headlock as Jacqui ran over to pull up Jim's shirt...
...right on Jim's stomach was none other than a bloody bite wound caused by a walker.
...Jim was going to die.
"I'm okay..." Jim whispered with a feeling of denial as he finally ceased trying to resist.
Ulrich finally let go of Jim and he immediately backed away over to the others, who were all continuing to just stand where they were with shock as they all stared at Jim. He was bit. He was actually fucking bitten by a walker and he was absolutely going to die soon... The others knew they couldn't do anything about that, and they also were aware that there wasn't any hope for a cure as far as they knew. Jim, however, was still in shock and still in denial about how he was bitten. He didn't want to end up like his family...
The others continued to listen to Jim as he quietly continued speaking to them all, repeating two words over and over again. It was just a little bite, that's all... He wasn't going to end up like Amy. He wasn't going to end up like his family... Everything was going to be completely fine.
"I'm okay... I'm okay, I'm okay..."
The surviving members of the camp, the Lyoko Warriors and Anne all grouped together in order to discuss what had happened no less than twenty minutes earlier. The camp had only went through this situation two separate times, the first with Amy Smith and the second with Amy Harrison. Everyone who was bitten last night was already dead... Jim was also bitten. He was going to die no matter what happens... Jim was sitting on the back bumper of the RV and was watching the other survivors as they gathered in a circle a short distance away, debating on what exactly they were to do about Jim.
No one really had any answers aside from Daryl.
"I say we put this pickaxe through his head... and the dead girl's. Be done with it..." Daryl commented to the others as he tightly held his pickaxe in one of his hands.
"God, Daryl, we cannot just put him down like he's a rabid dog!" Aelita protested with pure disgust. "Honestly, how would you feel if I shoved a pickaxe into your head right after you get bitten? Is that truly what you would want?"
"Yeah, and I'd thank you while you did it!" Daryl retorted.
Aelita simply frowned at hearing this and she crossed her arms as she glared at the redneck. He was suggesting that they just kill Jim before he was even a walker?! Kill a living human being?! It was sickening. Chase, Dylan, Jeremie and all of the other Lyoko Warriors likewise were disgusted by what Daryl was saying to the pink-haired girl. He was a real piece of shit...
"In that case you will not have to worry about me hesitating on that matter if you end up bitten, don't worry..." Aelita threatened with a grim and menacing tone.
Daryl glared right back at the pink-haired teen and he simply rolled his eyes. That little bitch is hardly his concern at the moment... In any event, the group still had the problem of Jim to deal with. He was definitely screwed at the moment.
"I hate to say it... I never thought I would, but maybe Daryl's right..." Dale sighed.
"Jim's not a monster, Dale. Or some rabid dog." Rick suddenly frowned at hearing the older man seemingly agreeing with the redneck.
"I'm not suggesting-" Dale tried to say.
Unfortunately Dale was almost immediately cut off by Rick. He wasn't agreeing with Daryl in the slightest, but alas Rick misrepresented what he was trying to say to the others.
"He's sick. A sick man..." Rick stated. "We start down that road, where do we draw the line?" he added, not liking the idea of killing a living human whatsoever.
The others all took in Rick's words very carefully. Of course Daryl still was unrelenting in his belief that Jim needed to die before anyone could be bitten, and even Alexandr agreed with this. Basically every other person in the camp was completely against that idea though. Enough human beings had died already and they seriously did not want to add to the death toll...
"I think the line's pretty clear. Zero tolerance for walkers, or one's to be..." Daryl stated.
"What if we can get him help? Like at the Center for Disease Control, or something?" Ulrich inquired with the hope that a cure could be out there for his fellow camp member.
"I heard the CDC was working on a cure..." Rick commented to the others as he had a similar hope.
Everyone else in the group aside from the original five Lyoko Warriors knew the truth about what had happened to much of the United States's government agencies since the outbreak began weeks earlier. The US Army and the National Guard were long gone last they heard, along with other groups such as FEMA and the American Red Cross. They heard rumors of safety in the city of Sacramento, California through a few radio stations before the power and the airwaves died, but there was absolutely no possible way they could ever get there at the current moment even if that was true.
"I heard that too. Heard a lot of things before the world went to hell..." Shane replied with a shrug.
"Well, what if the CDC is still up and running? Maybe we could get Jim some help?" Anne suggested.
"I don't think it's running anymore..." Chase sighed with disappointment at his own comment. "Last we heard was that all of the facilities in Atlanta and a lot of the country in general went completely dark in the days after we left the city. FEMA, American Red Cross, Department of Homeland Security, Office of Civil Defense... You name it."
"Maybe. But if there's any government left... any structure at all... then they'd protect the CDC at all costs, wouldn't they?" Rick asked a hypothetical question.
Most of the others in the group saw the wisdom in Rick's words. If any part of the United States was still functioning in any shape or form then it had to be the CDC, right? The Center for Disease Control had to have been the most important thing to defend while society was collapsing as the CDC was most likely the ones who were focusing on a cure to the outbreak. If Jim had any sort of chance to live then it had to be in the CDC building within Atlanta...
"I think it might be our best shot. Shelter, food, protection-" Dylan began to say.
"Dylan, I know you want those things, alright? I do too..." Shane said as he immediately cut him off. "But, if they exist, then they have to be at Fort Benning..." he added to the others.
"Fort Benning?" Anne asked with confusion as she had no idea what was so special about that place.
"It's a military base, I learned about it on the internet once. It's supposed to have 120,000 troops there and apparently the place itself is really important to the US military. It's all the way over near Columbus, though." Patrick informed.
"About a hundred miles in the opposite direction..." Lori added matter-of-factly.
A hundred miles away? That wasn't a good thing... If they don't go to the CDC and get Jim some help then they'd definitely have to go to Fort Benning. Where else could they go? They obviously couldn't stay at the quarry anymore. The main problem with going to Fort Benning was that a one hundred mile car trip wasn't as safe as it was just a month or two ago. A hundred miles easily meant the difference between life or death now...
"That is right. But it's away from the hot zone." Shane pointed out. "Now listen to me... if that place is operational, it'll be heavily armed. We'd be safe there..." he added.
"Shane, you saw exactly what happened in Atlanta just like how most of us have seen as well." Charles stated as a deep frown formed on his face. "The military got overrun very quickly and they got desperate enough to drop napalm on both the living and the dead. If they got overrun defending just one city then who's to say that Fort Benning isn't a hellish walker-exclusive place at the moment?" he asked.
The others went silent on this. Although Fort Benning is nevertheless a promising lead, the Center for Disease Control was far more of a safer and more-promising route to take at the moment. They had to try and get to the place no matter what happens...
"Rick's right. The CDC is our best choice and it's Jim's only chance to survive..." Rebecca stated.
Daryl became noticeably angry when he heard this and even Alexandr also had an annoyed expression on his face as well. Jim was a good guy but he was a goner now. What if he turned while they were on their way to the CDC? What if another person got bit because of him? He needed to go now before he became a true threat later...
"You go looking for 'aspirin', do what you need to do..." Daryl taunted and frowned at the others.
Everyone in the group immediately went wide eyed when they saw Daryl turn and begin to storm straight towards Jim with a large pickaxe in his hand. They all knew that Daryl was about to do something that could not be allowed to happen...
"Somebody needs to have some balls to take care of this damn problem!" Daryl shouted to the others as he approached the bitten man.
Daryl lifted up his pickaxe to strike as Jim immediately backed away in an effort to not get hit in the head by the unpredictable asshole. Thankfully the others in the group quickly ran over to the scene and readied themselves in an effort to protect Daryl, and among the people who almost immediately aimed their guns straight at Daryl's head was Rick, Chase and Aelita. Yumi was also aiming her AR-15 rifle at Daryl from a short distance away.
Needless to say, Daryl was absolutely fucked if he even thought of trying to murder Jim...
"We don't kill the living..." Rick scowled as he pressed the barrel of his revolver against the back of Daryl's head.
Daryl turned to look back at Rick as Chase and Aelita both went to stand in between Jim and the redneck himself. The two siblings continued to aim their handguns directly at Daryl's head in order to protect Jim even though they both never truly wanted to kill a living person, and after a few more moments Daryl finally lowered his pickaxe and signaled that he wouldn't dare attempt to try that once more. Everyone else was relieved at seeing this but all of the people who were aiming their guns at Daryl continued to do so, as they absolutely wanted to be one hundred percent sure that he was not going to try and kill Jim.
"That's funny coming from a man who just put a gun to my head." Daryl pointed out the hypocrisy of keeping one man alive while aiming guns at another.
Chase and Aelita both lowered their pistols and moved out of the way and went back to stand with all of the others as Shane took their place with his loaded shotgun still in his hands, as he was in agreement with Rick and the teens on keeping Daryl away from Jim.
"We all may disagree on some things but not on this. You put it down..." Shane warned with a frown.
After a few more moments Daryl finally tossed the pickaxe back down on the ground with a feeling of frustration. Only after this was when Yumi and Rick finally lowered their weapons, and Daryl almost immediately began to angrily walk away from the scene with a lot of very angry curse words coming out of his mouth. With a sigh of relief Rick went over to grab Jim by his arm, and then he led the bitten man into the RV for his own safety. Daryl could easily try to kill the poor guy again if they all weren't careful.
Meanwhile, the Lyoko Warriors and Anne all regrouped as the others in the camp walked away from the scene and went to do whatever they were originally doing. The teens were relieved that the situation didn't turn bloody and they just hoped that Jim would be able to get all of the help that he currently needs.
"Well... that was definitely 'interesting', to put it politely." Odd quipped in an attempt to lighten the mood.
A few of the other teens either smiled a bit or chuckled softly when they heard Odd say that, but unfortunately his attempt to lighten the mood failed as everyone was more focused on the crushing reality that was in front of them. They were in a very shitty situation and they had to figure out a way to fix this mess...
But even so, Anne saw her chance to finally ask the others about what she had heard and read earlier.
"So... uh..." Anne began to say, pausing for a moment as she tried to find the right words. "I overheard Kyra and Charles talking about something earlier that really made me curious."
"Huh? About what, Annie?" Dylan blinked.
"I'm not sure. Something about 'XANA' and the 'Lyoko Warriors', whatever those things mean." Anne shrugged. "And I saw a journal laying around that had some weird stuff in it that mentioned XANA and the Lyoko Warriors as well. I thought it wasn't owned by anyone and I saw it sitting on a chair so that's why I originally looked through it. But apparently it belonged to Odd so I put it down after that."
The Lyoko Warriors all immediately went silent and their eyes widened with shock at what they had just heard Anne comment to them. Kyra, Odd and Charles all looked like they saw a ghost as their faces almost immediately lost all of the color in them due to pure shock. Anne overheard them...? And she saw the things written in Odd's journal...?
...Oh shit.
Yumi, Jeremie and Aelita couldn't help but flash a glare straight towards Odd for being so foolish as to document all of that information within his journal, as this exact scenario was something that needed to be avoided. All three of them were also very annoyed at Kyra and Charles for their conversation's foolish breach of security, but that was a lot less worse than the actual proof that resided within Odd's journal. What the hell were they thinking?!
"What's wrong? Why're you glaring at them like that?" Anne blinked as she noticed the glares on the three faces.
"U-Uh..." Chase trailed off as he had absolutely no clue what to say. "They... um... They were talking about a video game, that's all. A really obscure Korean game..." he lied.
"How was it a video game if your names were all over in the stories inside the journal?" Anne deadpanned as she crossed her arms.
The Lyoko Warriors knew they were all in a massive pickle at the moment. Normally when someone found out about Lyoko or XANA then they'd have their memories wiped by the Return Trip after they finished defeating a XANA attack. But they didn't have that luxury at the moment... Anne knew all about their adventures and there wasn't a damn thing they could do to convince her otherwise. Noticing this, Aelita gently placed her hands on Anne's shoulders and led her a short distance away from the others, much to the girl's visible confusion.
"Just... wait right here for a moment, alright, Anne? We will give you your answers in a moment." Aelita promised.
Anne had absolutely no idea what was going on, but she relented and just continued to stand at the spot where she was led to. Aelita gave a small smile to the girl but it quickly faded away due to worry as she hurried back over to the others, and a feeling of anger grew within her as she frowned straight towards Odd.
"You wrote about Lyoko and XANA in your journal?! What were you thinking, Odd?!" Aelita demanded to know.
"I didn't think anyone would find it! I'm sorry!" Odd apologized as he now fully regretted even getting the journal.
"It's too late for that, Odd! She knows about Lyoko! She knows about XANA! Hell, she knows about us, man!" Patrick frowned with a growing feeling of worry.
Odd had absolutely no idea what to say. He knew he screwed up, screwed up very badly. Hell, he screwed up even worse then when he actually told that girl Brynja Heringsdötir about Lyoko a few years ago in an effort to impress her. He actually showed her the lab inside of the factory while he did and her memory of the experience was later wiped thanks to a Return Trip, but even so it all still didn't even remotely compare to this situation!
The others in the group decided to just try and lower their anger and frustrations towards their friend at the moment. What's done is done and going off on Odd wasn't going to solve a thing, especially during the end of the world. Anne knew about them... but they had no solutions. Everyone hoped that Jeremie might be able to figure out a way to fix this somehow, but alas the super genius had nothing in mind.
"I don't know what to do..." Jeremie admitted to the others with a resigned sigh. "We don't have any way to make Anne forget about what she's seen and heard."
"Someone actually knows about everything we've done and there's nothing at all that we can do about it?" Robert asked with growing concern.
"It sure seems that way..." Miranda replied as she also resigned herself to that fact like how Jeremie did.
The one good thing about this leak of information was that there was probably not going to be major repercussions to it. There wasn't a civilization anymore and it's not like the Men in Black were going to track them down, at least that's what they were really hoping. If this happened just a few months earlier then it would be a complete disaster, but now it seemed like this could be controlled. Anne knew about them but if they played their cards right then no one else would as well.
"She knows about it all... but do we give her the full story, though?" Dylan inquired to the others. "If she's still the same Anne Marshall that I knew from all those years ago then she can definitely be trusted with any kind of secret." he added.
"Are you sure? Like, are you absolutely sure? Anne's a very nice girl but what if she does accidentally blurt out stuff about Lyoko to the others in the camp?" Yumi asked.
"Dylan and I can vouch for her." Chase quickly replied. "We don't need to make her a Lyoko Warrior or anything like that. But she's a very loyal friend and I know she won't betray our secret to anyone."
The other Lyoko Warriors glanced at the two brothers for a moment before every single one of them looked over at Anne, who was obviously very surprised at the great many eyes that were now suddenly glancing at her. Anne just gulped with a sudden feeling of nervousness and she sheepishly waved at the group to try and get them to stop looking at her, which thankfully worked as a few of them waved back at her before they all looked away and went back to their conversation.
After this, the Lyoko Warriors decided that they should put themselves to a vote. Should the group tell Anne about all of the events that have happened since Jeremie turned on the supercomputer while searching for robot parts all those years ago? Or should the group never allow Anne to know more than she already does? Jeremie kept a mental tally of the votes...
What were the results? Chase, Dylan, Ulrich, Odd, Jennifer, Rebecca, and Patrick all voted to tell Anne everything. But Kyra, Yumi, Jeremie, Robert, Miranda, Alexandr and Charles all voted to not tell her and to protect their secret. Verity simply abstained from the vote. That meant that there was seven votes for and seven votes against telling Anne about XANA and Lyoko. Only one person was left to be a tie-breaker...
Aelita.
The Lyoko Warriors all looked directly at the pink-haired super genius and all of them wondered what her vote was going to be. If Aelita abstained then who knew what would happen to deal with that. If Aelita voted no, then Anne wouldn't know anything else whatsoever. If Aelita voted yes, then Anne would become partial to information that no one else on the planet could know in any shape or form.
Aelita herself had an expression of deep thought on her face as she listed all of the positives and negatives to these choices in her mind, as she wanted to approach a decision like this in a very delicate, logical and scientific manner. Finally, after several moments, Aelita opened her eyes and she looked back at her brothers, boyfriend and all of her friends. She had her answer...
"...I vote we should tell her about us." Aelita voted wholeheartedly.
That was it... Eight votes for, seven against, and one abstention. Anne was going to be told everything. The Lyoko Warriors didn't think they would ever do something like this purposefully and permanently, but now it was going to happen. Aelita smiled at her friends before she turned to look back at Anne and waved her back over to the group, causing the girl with the bandana to smile back as she immediately walked back over to the others. They'd have to tell her somewhere more private though so no one else in the camp would find out...
"Alright, Anne... Just follow us. We're going to tell you everything." Aelita instructed.
"Okay. Lead the way, guys." Anne nodded.
The Lyoko Warriors all began to walk down the road that was leading out of the camp with Anne following close behind them. Everyone made sure to keep an eye out for any more walkers as they went through the trees, and Anne made sure to stay close to Dylan and Chase as she followed the group. Some of the others from the camp noticed all of the teens were walking down the road but none of them wondered anything about it, and eventually the teens made it to a secluded location a few thousand meters or so away from the entrance of the camp.
They were well out of hearing range now...
The Lyoko Warriors eventually saw a small spot in the treeline with a fallen log to sit on, so that was where the conversation was going to happen. The teens all walked into the treeline with Anne, Dylan and Chase all going to sit on the log together. The other Lyoko Warriors all stood in front of the teens as Charles and Kyra volunteered to watch the forest for any signs of walkers so as to ensure the group's safety.
Aelita approached the log and she ended up standing right in front of Anne. The pink-haired girl looked down at her new bandana-clad friend as she crossed her arms, a serious expression forming on her face.
"What we tell you here can't be told to anyone else at all, no matter what. No one else in the camp can know any of this and you need to keep this between us for the rest of your life, whether it's long or short." Aelita instructed.
"I won't say a word to anyone else about whatever you tell me." Anne genuinely promised.
Aelita was happy to hear that Anne took this seriously and so was all of the other Lyoko Warriors. Taking a deep breath and shutting her eyes for a moment, Aelita began to tell the group's story. There was definitely a great many things that Anne was going to be told. The girl herself appeared to be very interested to learn what the context was behind the things she heard from Kyra and Charles, along with all of the stuff written in Odd's journal.
She would need to start straight from the beginning...
"My father is a man named Waldo Schaeffer, and my mother is a woman named Anthea Hopper..." Aelita began to explain to her new friend. "Many years ago my parents were scientists on 'Project Carthage', a top-secret government project that originally began with the intent of spying on the Soviet Union along with other communist and socialist nations during the Cold War. But my parents soon had enough of it due to several ethical reasons that were formed during the project... At the same time, both of them fell in love and they later married. Then Chase and I were both born in the early 1980s."
Anne's eyes slowly began to widen after she heard Aelita say that. Did she hear the girl correctly? Aelita and Chase were both born over twenty-five YEARS ago? How was that even remotely possible when they looked like teenagers? Aelita could tell that Anne was shocked by this fact, so she decided to continue the story so as to answer whatever questions she was definitely going to have.
"But after we were born, our parents ran at the very first opportunity they could find. They took both of us to hide in a cabin in the mountains of Switzerland in order to escape from the project and its backers entirely." Aelita continued.
"But they failed because of the Men in Black..." Chase explained for his sister with a frown. "Eventually these really mysterious and creepy guys in black suits found us somehow. They kidnapped our mother in order to ensure she would continue helping the project." he added.
Anne was even more shocked when she heard this. Their mother was kidnapped...?
"The last time I saw my mother for many years afterwards was through the back of a car window as they took her... For the rest of my life I absolutely will not ever forget that look of fear on her face or the way she screamed our names from the other side of that window." Aelita sadly added as she remembered how her mother was taken.
Anne was truly horrified. Their mother was actually kidnapped...? That was absolutely fucked up! What monsters would even think to do such a thing like kidnapping a mother as her children helplessly watched?! Aelita took a deep breath and she gathered her resolve to continue the story, as the memories for the most part were all very painful to remember. She wiped some tears out of her eyes and then proceeded.
"My father fled once more and he took us both back to France. He even gave himself the fake name of 'Franz Hopper' in order to continue hiding, and ultimately he decided to try to continue fighting against Project Carthage... With files stolen from the project, he specifically created a virtual world called 'Lyoko' in order to fight. He also built a very powerful quantum supercomputer hidden deep within an abandoned factory in Amiens in order to house Lyoko." Aelita continued the story.
"But unfortunately the Men in Black found him again..." Chase continued. "Out of desperation, dad brought us to the abandoned factory since his backup plan was to simply hide us all in Lyoko forever. Both dad and Aelita made it in with no trouble, but a glitch in the virtualization programming caused me to simply disappear before I could even make it inside of Lyoko." he sighed.
The bandana-clad girl couldn't believe what she was hearing. A virtual world? A computer AI? A secret government project? All of this couldn't be real, but... well, she could tell Aelita and Chase seemed to be completely serious about what they were telling her. This was insane...
"W-What happened to you after that?" Anne asked with shock at what she was being told.
Chase just simply gave a shrug. "We're still not sure. Even dad didn't know when we asked him about it... All that we could figure out was that somehow I ended up younger and even ended up all the way over in America several years later, where I was later adopted by the Enhearts with absolutely no memory of the experience or of my original family." he explained.
This all had to be fake... It had to be. As far as she knew Chase and Dylan weren't liars towards her in any shape or form when they were all younger, but this couldn't be true. It was too far-fetched!
"No, none of that can't be possible!" Anne dismissed with a shake of her head.
"Anne, I swear that what we're telling you is the truth. You read all of this stuff in Odd's journal..." Aelita stated. "I'm still not exactly sure what happened with my brother, but I was trapped inside Lyoko for ten whole years. As I was stuck in a virtual world, I didn't age a single second. Chase didn't age either due to how he became younger and how he ended up in America years later. We're supposed to be twenty-six and twenty-five right now, but instead we're sixteen and fifteen." she explained.
Jeremie stepped up to also speak. "I found the supercomputer one day while looking for robot parts. I turned it on and that's when I first met Aelita." he explained.
Aelita smiled a bit with happiness when she remembered the exact moment she woke up. She never would have guessed that she would ultimately fall in love with the very first face she saw, even if she thought that face was very cute. Aelita was very happy that Jeremie was hers, and Jeremie was likewise happy Aelita was his. The two geniuses were a perfect match... However, Aelita's smile faded away as she continued the story.
"When I first woke up I thought I was merely an artificial intelligence. I had completely forgotten about my father, my mother and even my brother. I even forgot I was once a true human being. I stayed in that mindset for a long time afterwards..." Aelita added to the story.
Chase shut his eyes a bit tightly when he heard his sister mention that. He arrived at Kadic Academy shortly after Aelita was brought back into the real world by the other four original Lyoko Warriors, so as a result he had no interactions whatsoever with her when she was trapped in Lyoko. But nevertheless it still really hurt him to imagine her in such a situation.
No memory of her family, no memory of her prior life, not even a single memory of her own humanity...
He wouldn't wish such a terrible thing even upon even his worst enemies...
"It's all true, Anne... Franz Hopper, Project Carthage, what happened with Chase and Aelita... everything." Ulrich assured. "But there's more to the story. You still need to hear about XANA..."
Anne furrowed her brow as she remembered a mention of something called 'XANA' in Odd's journal. Charles also mentioned that name when she heard him and Kyra speaking earlier... The others continued their story so as to let her know exactly what that monster was.
"XANA is a computer AI that my dad created decades ago." Chase explained. "When the government was dealing with enemy threats towards Project Carthage, XANA was specifically created by dad to counteract these outside issues and thus understand exactly what it means to protect humanity. However, due to it learning what humanity was becoming through constant war and violence, the program separated its side with humans and created an agenda to either cleanse human life or to dominate it with their own technology.
"My father reappropriated XANA to help as his assistant in his attempts to destroy Project Carthage. My father attempted to gradually make Lyoko more and more perfect with a specific program which he called: 'Temporal Reversion'. Basically... it allowed him to travel back in time." Aelita also explained.
Aelita took Odd's journal and she even did one better. Jeremie still had his harddrive from his laptop, and it contained all sorts of proof about Lyoko and XANA and everything else about the supercomputer. With a bit of ingenious computing trickery, Aelita quickly managed to hook up the laptop harddrive to a small tablet computer that Verity had in her backpack, and then the pink-haired supergenius pulled up information about the Return Trip program along with videos showing it in operation. Aelita handed the tablet over to Anne so she could watch, and her eyes slowly began to widen with shock at what she was seeing and reading and watching.
TIME TRAVEL?!
HOLY FUCKING SHIT!
At first, Anne couldn't even say anything due to her shock. If this was all just some sort of a lie then they were damn sure convincing!
"T-T... TIME TRAVEL?!" Anne gasped.
"Yes..." Jeremie confirmed. "See, whenever there was a XANA attack, usually many people would witness it and some would even end up injured occasionally. To make sure that no one would remain hurt or even remember any of this after we stop the attack, we would use that Return Trip program to go back in time and also eliminate all of the memory they had of the experience. We only go somewhere between a few hours and two full days back before the attack happened, and only the Lyoko Warriors would remember the incidents due to us all having been scanned by the supercomputer." he explained.
Anne looked back down at the tablet as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing. This was absolutely shocking to her... The bandana-clad girl then looked up to her new pink-haired friend as if she was desperate to hear that this was truly. Chase simply nodded in confirmation before he continued the story.
"Dad made the time-travel program. But unfortunately what my dad didn't know was that with every usage of the Return Trip, XANA grew more stronger. He used the program a full 2,546 times in a twenty-four hour period in order to make Lyoko more perfect, and this basically meant that he was trapped in one day for nearly eight years. He went insane..." Chase said with a tone of deep sadness as she thought of his father and all of the terrible things he had to go through.
"XANA eventually betrayed my father and alerted the Men in Black as to where we were." Aelita continued. "When we went into Lyoko my father tried to reason with him, but XANA would not hear any of it and he even tried to attack us. Deciding that it was simply too dangerous to allow him to be active, my father shut down the supercomputer and trapped us within it so humanity would be safe. I remained in there for ten years before Jeremie turned the supercomputer back on." she added.
Dylan gently took Anne's hands and made her look him dead in the eye. He knew she was still shocked but he absolutely needed her to listen to what he was about to say, and he needed her to realize that he was absolutely serious.
"XANA simply wants to kill or enslave every single last human being on our world, Anne... He can't be reasoned with, he can't comprehend how to give up, and he's constantly making plans to eliminate humanity. But we're fighting against him... We're the Lyoko Warriors, and we're dedicated to stopping XANA's attacks and destroying him once and for all." Dylan stated with a frown.
Enslaving or killing all of humanity...? Lyoko Warriors...? Freaking time travel?! It was so much to take in within so little time... Anne was astounded by everything she was hearing and she still wasn't fully sure if she was hearing anything that was true or not, but there was one obvious thing that was plain to see: Chase and Dylan certainly had been busy since the last time she saw them!
"Y-You're fighting a computer AI...?" Anne hesitantly asked.
"Yeah, and we've been doing it for a few years now. All of us, including another two named William Dunbar and Amy Smith. But they're both gone now due to the outbreak..." Verity informed, ending with a sad sigh at the loss of her friends.
The other Lyoko Warriors all became saddened at the mention of their dead friends, but they still continued the story.
"Originally it was just me, Jeremie, Ulrich, Yumi and Odd in the group. But then Chase coincidentally came to Kadic Academy with Dylan to attend school, and through nothing short of a miracle they found out about Lyoko. After they proved themselves during a XANA attack, we allowed them into the group. We did not know that Chase and I were related until a few months later." Aelita continued.
"Then the rest of us joined up over the next two or three years or so. The last of us that officially became Lyoko Warriors was Amy and Robert Smith." Odd added.
Anne sat down the tablet and suddenly stood up from the log before she walked a few steps away from the others, her eyes widened as she had a trembling hand over her mouth due to pure shock. The others looked at Anne and wondered what could be going through her head at the moment. Did she believe them at all? Or did she think all of them were insane...?
"...I-If this 'XANA' guy is real, and if he's actually as much of a threat you say he is... then did he really cause this outbreak? Are the walkers because of him?" Anne cautiously asked.
"Jeremie had a laptop with some programs that could check to see if the outbreak was a XANA attack, but it got destroyed a few days ago. We have no idea if he caused this or not." Ulrich explained with a shrug.
"If he truly did do this then even so we wouldn't have a way to stop him. The only way to do so is an ocean away back in France... We're helpless to stop him if this outbreak is truly a XANA attack of sorts." Rebecca said in a mournful tone.
Anne walked a short distance away from the others and took a deep breath as she tried her hardest to keep her mind clear. These sixteen teenagers all helped to protect the entire planet from an evil computer AI...? She honestly was astounded, but then again who wouldn't be if they were told all of this? The Lyoko Warriors all watched as Anne stopped and appeared to be in deep thought, and each one of them wondered if Anne actually believed them or not.
They got their answer pretty quickly, as Anne sighed before she turned to face the Lyoko Warriors again. She crossed her arms and stared at them all for several moments before she nodded.
"...I believe you. As far-fetched as all of that sounded, for some reason I actually believe you." Anne said to the group.
"Then you know that this absolutely can't be told to anyone else at all..." Aelita stated.
"Exactly. If anyone else found out about XANA or Lyoko, and if they start thinking that the outbreak is a XANA attack of sorts, then there could be dire consequences." Jeremie added.
"I won't say a single word to anyone else about what you told me. I promise." Anne assured.
The Lyoko Warriors all were happy to hear that Anne took them seriously. It was done... she knew everything that the group knew about Lyoko and XANA, along all sorts of other things. This was a thing that simply could never be changed, and everyone hoped that this would work out well. Dylan and Chase both stood up from the log and soon the entire group began to make their way with Anne back over to the camp, as a lot of work still needed to be done before they would head for either the CDC or Fort Benning. With luck, their secret would not be learned by anyone else...
The Lyoko Warriors and Anne finally came back to the camp after getting Anne up to date on all of the things about themselves and their fight against XANA. As they walked back into the camp they saw that much of the cleanup work was nearing completion, but it was still very grim. A lot of the walker corpses were burnt and the few remaining ones were being put in the fire, and the corpses of their deceased camp members were all being put in a line for burial later on.
"Goddamn..." Charles grimly muttered with sadness as he saw the corpses of the camp members.
The group continued to make their way through the scene and they took in the sight of everything around them. After another moment the group separated to go back to helping the others in the camp in the grim tasks that had to be completed. Yumi, Ulrich, Alexandr and Patrick went to help toss walker corpses into the fire, Miranda and Jennifer went to help keep the RV under guard so no one could get to Jim, and Rebecca went with Verity, Kyra, Robert and Charles to help pacify the bodies.
Jeremie, Aelita, Dylan, Chase and Anne all remained together and stopped walking for a moment. The group noticed that Verity had grabbed an axe and was standing over the corpse of Ed Peletier, as she was about to pacify him. However, Carol walked over to the teen and she gently placed her hands upon the axe as an expression of sadness formed on her face.
"I'll do it... He's my husband..." Carol explained.
Verity's eyes widened with surprise at Carol's request, but she relented and allowed Carol to take the axe before she backed a few steps away. Carol turned to look down at her dead husband and she waited for a moment before she suddenly lifted up the axe and slammed it straight down onto Ed's head, pacifying him for good. However, Carol simply yanked the axehead back out and then immediately slammed it once more into the head, digging a large cut through his skull and brain. Carol openly began to sob loudly as she pulled the axe out and slammed it straight back into Ed's head over and over again, allowing herself to get some payback for all of the terrible things that Ed had done to her and Sophia over the years...
He was a terrible, terrible man... He wasn't the one she married years ago. He died long before the outbreak began...
As Carol took care of her husband's corpse, a gunshot within the camp was suddenly heard. Everyone turned just in time to see that Andrea had finally taken care of her sister by putting a bullet in her head, much to her devastation. Even so, Amy Harrison at long last was finally at peace.
A few minutes went by where Andrea continued to hold Amy's corpse close to her before she finally gathered the willpower to try and get her to one of the freshly-dug graves a short distance away. Both Dale and Verity immediately stopped what they were doing in order to go and give Andrea some help if she needed it, but once they got there she just brushed them away.
"I got it..." Andrea quietly muttered.
Verity and Dale were very saddened to see Andrea like this. Verity accepted Andrea's request and she patted the older woman on her shoulder to show a bit of support before she walked away to go back to what she was originally doing, but Dale still tried to be of service by reaching down to pick up Amy's legs. Andrea just simply frowned and pushed away his hands with both heartbreak and annoyance.
"I said I got it!" Andrea snapped at the older man.
Dale quickly retracted his hands and backed away so as to let Andrea have the space she so obviously needed. Andrea's expression softened after Dale retreated and she quickly picked up her sister's corpse in order to take it to her grave. For all of her life she assumed that it would be Amy burying her one day, decades from today. It wasn't supposed to end up like this... it wasn't supposed to be like this at all.
Andrea could only quietly sob as she made it to her sister's grave and gently set her down upon a blanket that rested next to it. She wrapped up her sister as best as she could and then she picked her up again so as to gently set her down inside the grave itself. Andrea proceeded to grab a nearby shovel and then she slowly began the process to bury her sister down into the earth...
She was going to miss her forever...
A few hours later the Lyoko Warriors were all standing around the grave of Amy Smith, each of them holding some flowers in their hands. They all knew exactly how significant this was going to be... Once they leave the quarry, they probably would never come back to Amy's grave for the rest of their lives. Robert was well aware of this and he was close to breaking down in tears just from the thought of leaving Amy's grave behind forever. He just hoped she would rest in piece in the meantime.
Anne Marshall was there to pay her respects as well. Unfortunately she never get a chance to know Amy before her death, but from what she heard it was apparent that the girl was a very good person. It was a shame she was gone now...
"Does anyone want to say anything...? This'll probably be the last chance we have..." Ulrich stated to the group.
The group looked at each other and wondered who would be the first to speak up. After a few moments Yumi proceeded to walk up to Amy's grave and she carefully set down her red flowers upon it, mournfully looking down at the wooden cross after she did so.
"I remember the first time we met Amy..." Yumi began. "She and Robert had just arrived at Kadic Academy all the way from Seattle and they were trying to find their way around the school. Both of them didn't know much French at first, so asking other students for directions to class was a lot easier said than done... Amy had this little pocket-sized French-language handbook with her so she could ask things word by word..."
Yumi paused for a second in order to collect herself as she remembered the day she first met Amy and Robert. It was truly hard to believe that the bright, funny, cheerful girl she saw alive just three weeks earlier was now laying dead in the ground under her. Amy deserved far better than this...
"Ulrich and I were walking through one of the courtyards when we saw a few students ganging up on the pair, starting to harass them." Yumi kept going. "One of them grabbed Amy's book and threw it on the ground, and another pushed Robert straight into a mud puddle. Ulrich and I saw all of that and we ran over to help them... The bullies? We made sure they wouldn't trouble Amy or Robert ever again."
The others all noticed that Yumi suddenly began to have a few tears going down the sides of her face as she talked about Amy.
"We helped Amy and Robert off of the ground and we gave Amy her handbook back... We introduced ourselves to each other and it took Amy a full fifteen minutes to find the words for 'Thank you so much', so we had to sit there the entire time and wait as she searched the book for the words 'Merci beaucoup.' She even screwed up my name by accidentally calling me 'Yuri' or something like that." Yumi laughed a little as the tears continued to go down the sides of her face.
Ulrich walked over to Yumi and he gently placed his hand on her back in order to give her some some emotional support as she talked about Amy. Yumi flashed a small smile at her boyfriend before the smile faded as she continued her story.
"After that incident we became friends and later we introduced them to everyone else in our group..." Yumi continued as an expression of deep sadness formed on her face. "Then one day a XANA attack happened. You know those self-driving Google cars? XANA took control of three that were in the city for an exposition and then he tried to run several of us over with them while we were all in town looking for a good restaurant to eat at. Robert and Amy just happened to be out in town as well and they both saw what was happening. They didn't run away, and Amy even saved my life when one of the cars came straight at me. She pushed me out of the way just in the nick of time... and now I'm going to miss her. I really, really am..."
Yumi lowered her head and tightly shut her eyes as she finished her story. Almost immediately she allowed Ulrich to pull her in for a hug and she quietly began to cry as she dug her face in his chest. She never lost a friend before this terrible outbreak began, but with both William and Amy gone because of the walkers she felt her heart simply shatter. Yumi really hoped that she wouldn't lose any more friends in the future...
The next person who volunteered to speak was Aelita, who walked over to Amy's cross and set down a pair of very pretty white and purple flowers next to the red ones Yumi set down. Aelita stared down at the cross for a few silent moments before she turned to face the others, thinking of a story about Amy to tell them.
"I first met Amy Smith through Yumi." Aelita began. "I thought she was a very friendly and very charming person, but we did not get a real chance to know each other until after that XANA attack Yumi just mentioned. Robert and Amy's memories of the attack were wiped clean due to the Return Trip, but we all collectively decided that both of them could be useful in fighting XANA in the future. For a whole month we studied them and we hung out with them both as often as we could in an effort to see if they were trustworthy. Thankfully they turned out to be just that, and we officially made them into both Lyoko Warriors and friends shortly thereafter."
Robert and the other Lyoko Warriors all gave sad smiles as they remembered the events Aelita recalled to them. Anne also felt a bit saddened as she listened to what Aelita was saying, as it was obvious to her that she cared very deeply for her friend Amy. The pink-haired genius suddenly began to chuckle a little bit as she remembered other events that she and Amy did together.
"Amy and I would go to the mall nearly every Saturday together, just the two of us." Aelita continued to say. "Amy would buy us some ice cream every time. She always got chocolate-chip cookie dough on a waffle cone, I always got strawberry and vanilla with sprinkles in a cup... After that we would always sit down along the side of this really cheesy fountain that was set up in the middle of the mall and we would play a game where we had to point out any cute boys we saw walking past us. But one time Amy saw a very cute boy her age that was walking along the other side of the fountain, so she turned her head and leaned really far backwards in order to get a good view of him..."
Aelita suddenly began to openly laugh to herself as she remembered the events that occurred in her story.
"But then she slipped and accidentally fell backwards into the fountain!" Aelita laughed. "On her way down she grabbed my shoulder in an effort to try and stay upright but she unintentionally pulled me in with her! Both of us surfaced from the water after a few more moments and basically every last person within a hundred feet were now silent and looking directly at us, but we both just broke out laughing at what had just happened to us. She even got that boy's number when he came to try and help us out of the water!" she explained.
The others all openly began to laugh with Aelita when she finished her story, as they all remembered exactly how Aelita and Amy came back to Kadic Academy soaked head to toe in water after that little accident. The soaked appearances of Amy and Aelita were the talk of the school for a whole week afterwards since a bunch of students saw the pair like that when they returned. Sissi Delmas teased the pair constantly for days afterwards once she heard about how they fell into the fountain, but thankfully her teasing completely ceased after she was threatened with bodily harm by Jennifer and Miranda.
The group and Aelita all continued to laugh for several more moments, but the group's laughter quickly ceased when they realized that Aelita's laughter had morphed straight into open sobbing as she mourned yet another dead friend. Jeremie quickly went over to comfort his girlfriend and he gently led her away from Amy's cross as she continued to quietly sob to herself over what happened to Amy...
First Kiwi, then William, and now Amy... Aelita's heart was simply shattered at the reality that they were all gone forever.
In any event, the group continued their ceremony. One by one everyone walked up to Amy's cross and left her some flowers before they shared a personal story they shared with their dead friend. There was some more laughs, there was some more tears, and there was even one or two stories that simply caused nearly everyone to break down sobbing. Even Anne wasn't unaffected by any of this and she had more than enough laughs and tears to share with the others as well...
Finally almost everyone had gotten through their stories about Amy, and a small pile of beautiful and very colorful flowers now sat upon the earth that marked Amy's grave. The last person who had to go up was Robert... The boy himself simply stared down at his sister's grave for a few silent moments before he set down some flowers that were colored blue, which was Amy's favorite color.
Robert mournfully looked over at his friends and took a deep breath to gather up the will to speak. "After our parents died not long after she was born, Amy and I lived with our grandmother for a while. But she died when Amy was eight and I was ten... We had an uncle who lived overseas in Amiens so we had to move over there. It wasn't easy for us... we didn't know any French when we first moved and it took a while to learn, but our uncle helped us a lot with that. When we first got to Kadic Academy we really kept to ourselves for the most part. Amy was really affected by our grandmother's death and she... Well, I-"
Robert suddenly choked up a little bit as he spoke of his dead sister, and he quickly lowered his head and averted his gaze so none of the others could see his face. One of Robert's fists balled up very tightly and trembled a bit as he struggled to keep himself together. He had to get through telling this story... he had to do it for Amy.
"...Well, I- I think she was very distant to a lot of people after that. Even me..." Robert managed to get out as he continued. "But then we met you guys. Neither of us remembered that XANA attack after you wiped our memories, but I think you guys really saved her in more ways than you think when you started to hang out with us and treat us like friends. She started looking and sounding exactly like how the old Amy Smith used to, and it's all thanks to you guys. Amy always considered the Lyoko Warriors as family and she loved all of you with all her heart... and I... um... I- I... I..."
Robert finally lost control of himself and he began to openly break down. Tears of pure heartbreak and devastation flowed down the sides of his face as he collapsed down onto his knees and buried his face into his hands. The others were all heartbroken at witnessing this and soon Aelita ran over to help comfort him as best as she could.
The other Lyoko Warriors cautiously approached the sobbing teen and Aelita, and they all proceeded to join Aelita in hugging Robert in a huge group hug to show him some support in his grief. Robert himself greatly appreciated this but just continued to cry at the loss of his only sister... Anne simply watched all of this unfold with an expression of sadness upon her face. She easily could tell that they were very tightly-knit with each other, as if they were a family. It must have been really hard to lose anyone if you were in a group like that...
After a few more moments the group had separated and Robert got himself back up onto his feet, wiping his eyes with one of his shirt sleeves. The group had to return back to the camp since they still needed to pack up, but Robert requested to stay at Amy's grave for a few more minutes so he could say goodbye to her in private. The others all understood the reasoning for this and they all began to head back to the camp one by one, with each of the Lyoko Warriors and even Anne all saying their own goodbyes to Amy Smith before they left. Pretty soon, Robert was left alone in order to say his own final goodbye to his sister as the Lyoko Warriors and Anne continued their walk back over to the quarry together...
After the ceremony at Amy Smith's grave, the Lyoko Warriors and Anne all finally came back to the camp together. Robert followed suit about ten minutes or so after the group came back to the camp, but soon all of the teens had separated and they quickly went to their tents to start packing up. The group knew that their destination was going to be the Center for Disease Control back in Atlanta, but in order to give Jim a fighting chance for survival they would have to get there soon. Packing up was thankfully quick since the teens didn't have much in their possessions anymore, and what little they actually owned at the moment was all effortlessly put in their backpacks. The tents were taken down pretty quickly as well, although Odd had a lot of difficulty in taking down his so he needed to get some help from Ulrich and Patrick. It was time to leave now...
Nearly everything was packed up on the top of the RV or in the trunks of the other vehicles soon after that, and it was evident that the only traces that remained of the group's presence at the quarry was the gravesites, a few old campfire spots and a little bit of trash. Oh, and there was also what remained of the awesome red sports car from a couple of days earlier. It still brought Glenn a feeling of sadness when he looked at it...
Everyone in the camp gathered up to listen to Shane speak after almost everything was packed up and ready to go.
"Everybody, listen up." Shane spoke up to the camp. "Those of you with CB's, we're gonna be on channel forty. Let's keep the chatter down, okay? Now, you got a problem, don't have a CB, can't get a signal or anything at all, you're gonna hit your horn one time. That'll stop the caravan..."
"Any questions?" Rick added to the others.
The entire camp was silent for several moments, which signaled that they all understood what to do. However, Morales and his family all stepped up to get everyone's attention, as they had something important to say.
"We're, uh... we're not going." Morales suddenly informed the camp.
Everyone else in the camp was very surprised and even shocked to hear what Morales just said. He and his family wasn't going to come with them to the CDC...? Morales's wife Miranda then stepped forward to also speak to the others.
"We have family in Birmingham. We want to be with our people..." Miranda Morales informed the others.
The Morales family was actually going to leave them... Did none of them know the risks of going out there? Granted, they had the right to leave the group if they so wished to, but doing that was basically a death sentence. For all the group knew, things across the state line was exactly as bad as Georgia was at this point. Perhaps it could be even worse...
"If you go on your own to Alabama then you won't have anyone to watch your back..." Yumi warned the family.
"Exactly. It's risky to head over there by yourselves..." Ulrich added with a small amount of consternation.
"We'll take the chance. I got to do what's best for my family..." Morales replied with a shrug.
"You sure?" Rick cautiously asked.
Morales took a glance back at his wife and children, and after seeing that they were still resolved to go to Birmingham the father looked back at Rick and nodded.
"We talked about it. We're sure." Morales confirmed.
The entire camp was still astounded that the Morales family was willing to leave, but it was indeed their right to do so if they wanted to. They really hoped that they would survive out there somehow...
"Alright..." Rick nodded in resignation.
Rick then walked over to a dufflebag that was sitting on a table next to the RV. The former police officer proceeded to pull out a small revolver along with a box of .357 magnum ammunition that went with it, causing Daryl to groan with annoyance as he knew exactly what Rick was planning to do. Rick then handed the revolver and the box over to Shane, and Shane in turn gifted it over to a very grateful Morales.
"The box is half full..." Shane advised.
Morales glanced down at the revolver and the box with a feeling of surprise and gratitude. They would just gift him a revolver and some bullets without a second thought...? These were truly good people. Miranda Morales broke out crying at the generosity and she immediately began to hug Lori and a few of the others in the group goodbye, and even her and Morales's children both broke out crying and went to hug Sophia and Carl goodbye. Eliza, Morales's daughter, even gave Sophia her favorite toy doll as something to remember her by in the future.
Morales and his family would truly miss all of these people forever...
"Thank you all... for everything..." Morales sadly smiled to everyone in the group.
"It's not a problem, Morales. We're all really going to miss you..." Verity said, giving a sad smile at the realization she would never see the family again.
Morales smiled at Verity before he went to shake Rick and Shane's hands. Kyra and Alexandr proceeded to walk over to Morales, and Morales himself could see that Alexandr had a walkie-talkie in his hand. If Morales and his family changed their minds down the road then they'd at least have a way to let the group know they would come back...
"Channel forty for if you change your minds... All right?" Kyra asked.
Morales took the walkie-talkie from Alexandr and he nodded at the two teens with gratitude. Soon he and his family went over to their packed vehicle in order to make sure that all of their things were packed and ready to go. The quarry needed to be abandoned before more walkers showed up, so everyone else quickly went back to packing up what little remained as well. It was done within minutes, and soon everyone was getting in their vehicles and getting ready to leave...
However, Robert Smith asked everyone in the group to wait at leaving for just one more moment as he felt he needed to go back to Amy one final time, and he promised it would be just for the briefest of moments. The others all allowed him to do so but they made sure to ask him to make it as quick as possible since Jim still needed help. Robert nodded at the group and he basically broke out running straight back towards his sister's grave, being very careful not to trip over anything along the way back. After a minute or so of running he finally made it back to Amy's grave and he crouched down next to her cross, sadly smiling down at it.
"Bye, Amy... I love you. Don't you ever forget that... Say 'hi' to mom and dad and grandma for me, okay? I promise I'll see you all again one day..." Robert said as a final goodbye to his sister.
A single tear ran down the side of Robert's face as he reached down to his necklace and tightly held his sister's old dolphin pendant in his hand. He leaned down and gave a loving kiss to the cross right on Amy's name, and after another moment or two he stood back up and hurriedly began to run back over to the group. He didn't dare look back at the grave as he ran... After another minute of running he finally made it back to the group and saw that they all were completely ready to leave, so Robert smiled at the group and thanked them for waiting before he proceeded to climb in one of the cars.
One by one the cars, trucks and the RV all began to drive single-file down the road that led out of the quarry. Robert was sitting next to Miranda in the car at the back of the line and he soon looked out of the back window, staring at the quarry's campsite and back over towards his sister's grave. He wished that she was still here, but that wasn't a possibility anymore... Miranda was saddened to see that Robert was like this and she gave him a supportive pat on his shoulder just to let him know he wasn't alone in this. He was very grateful towards her for her show of support, and after another moment of staring he sighed and began to stare out of the window directly next to him to take in the sights. The camp all proceeded to drive out onto one of the roads that led directly to Atlanta, taking a left in order to start heading towards the city itself.
Robert witnessed Morales's family wave goodbye to everyone as they turned right towards Alabama, and both he and everyone else hoped that they would make it to Birmingham in one piece.
It was going to be a long damn drive to the CDC...
WILDFIRE MSB3417 ACTIVE
BEGIN TRANSMISSION
A lone and very-tired looking man is shown on a computerized screen.
"Jenner here. It's day one hundred and ninety-four since Wildfire was declared, and sixty-three days since the disease abruptly went global. There's no clinical progress to report..."
The screen glitches a tiny bit and the man is now shown holding a pad of paper, as if he had a list of things written on it.
"Item: I finally got the scrubbers in the east sector shut down to save power. Wish I could have done it a month ago, but it took me that long to figure it out. Too bad I never studied engineering... Could have saved a lot of amps."
Another screen glitch happens and the man now is drinking from a cup of coffee, desperate for the caffeine to help stay awake.
"Item: I'm still not sleeping well. Can't seem to keep regular hours. Living underground doesn't help, not knowing if it's day or night... I'm just feeling very off-kilter these days..."
The man stares directly at the screen for a few more moments before he sighs and finally cuts the feed.
WILDFIRE MSB3417 ACTIVE
END TRANSMISSION