(Anne Marshall belongs to AquaDestinysEmbrace. Kudos to Aqua for letting me use Anne!)
(I DO NOT own The Walking Dead, or any of the names or brands that appear. But I do own my OC's)
About ten or fifteen minutes after they heard about this 'decontamination' that awaits them several members of the group were running towards the doors leading to the basement. Jenner didn't tell them everything, they all knew it. Jeremie, Aelita, Shane, Rick, T-Dog, Ulrich and Chase all got through the doors and were hurrying as fast as they could down a fight of stairs that led into the basement below them... The generators were down there. They had to still have some fuel in them!
"What did Doctor Jenner mean by 'decontamination'?!" Ulrich asked the others.
"I've got no fucking clue but it doesn't sound good!" Chase replied.
'Decontamination' was a word that was far too menacing and far too unclear for the group's liking... What the hell was going to happen if the fuel was all gone? What was Jenner not telling them? Just two days ago the CDC seemed like a safe haven; a place where the group could finally be safe from the undead. But now they were beginning to have doubts...
"I don't like the way that Jenner clammed up like that... I really don't!" Shane frowned as the group kept hurrying down the stairs.
"What's wrong with him? Seriously, man! Is he nuts or medicated or what?!" T-Dog exclaimed as he kept a tight hold on the stair railing.
The group continued to hurry down the flight of stairs as fast as they could. Finally they made it to the bottom and looked at a wall directory to find exactly which way to go. They saw that the generator room was down a hallway to their right so they proceeded to hurry in that direction. At the end of the hallway they found a door with a label marking it as the generator room, so they opened it and went straight inside to see what was in there. T-Dog flipped on the light switch, and the group was met with a shocking sight.
Fuel drums. Dozens upon dozens of fuel drums...
"Okay... Aelita, Jeremie and Chase, y'all take the left side of the room. T-Dog, Ulrich, Shane and I'll all take right." Rick instructed the group.
The group nodded at Rick's instructions, then they all split into two groups and they went their separate ways to look around for the generators. Jeremie had his smartphone charged up before this ordeal with Jenner began and he synced his phone's clock with the one in the main room, so he was the one in charge of keeping check on the time for them.
Aelita, Jeremie and Chase walked through a row of empty fuel drums and kept a cautious eye on their surroundings. They knew there was likely no walkers down in the CDC, but it was just force of habit by this point. In any event the three teens split up to cover a bit more ground, but after another few minutes Chase had stumbled onto the main generators for the Center of Disease Control complex.
"HEY! OVER HERE! GUYS, I FOUND IT!" Chase yelled out to alert the others.
Almost immediately everyone else in the generator room ran to get to Chase's location. The group gazed at the generator and saw that it had one fuel drum hooked up to it by a hose. This must be what Jenner was talking about... Rick went over to the barrel and he tilted it so as to get a sense of how much fuel was left within it, but much to his shock it was lightweight. There wasn't a drop of fuel left inside that drum...
"It's empty!" Rick said to the group.
"Empty?! It can't be!" Dylan said with complete shock.
Rick was about to reply to the black-haired teen when something happened... Suddenly out of nowhere the lights went out and the room went pitch-black. Thankfully some dim lights came on after that and gave them enough lights to see at least. Naturally the group was getting more and more worried by the second... God only knew what was going to happen when the power goes out.
"What the-?!" Aelita gasped when everything turned pitch black.
"Emergency lighting on." Vi said over the facility's speaker system as the dim lights came on.
Shane took a close look at a fuel gauge which was attached directly to the generator. Much to his worry he saw that the gauge was indeed getting very close to reading that the barrel was empty... But there was literally dozens upon dozens of barrels down here. How could Jenner be down to just ONE?!
"It can't be down to just that one..." Shane reasoned to the group.
"We got to try and find Jenner. He's the only one who can tell us what's going to happen when the power finally dies." Jeremie suggested to the group.
The group agreed with Jeremie's suggestion that they should find Jenner. They had to find him quick though, since the clock was at less than forty minutes and still counting down. God only knew what was going to happen when it reached zero... All of the group quickly ran from the generator and straight towards the doors to head back over to the main room. Jenner needed to tell them what the hell was going to happen! They wouldn't take 'no' for an answer!
In her bedroom, Anne was sitting on a couch reading an old Spider-Man comic to stave off some boredom. However, halfway through the comic she noticed that the air vent had stopping making noise. Rebecca and Yumi were also in the room as they went to hang out with her following that whole thing with Jenner that happened in the main room earlier. Like Anne they were both worried about when the generators ran out of fuel, but all three teens just hoped that nothing serious would happen anytime soon.
"No air...? What the hell?" Anne asked herself with confusion.
"What's up?" Yumi inquired as she set down a book she was reading.
Anne set down her comic book and she walked over to the side of the room where the vent was. Anne pulled a nearby chair over to her so she could stand on it, and when she did she placed her hand on the vent to see if there really was no air coming from it. Sure enough, there wasn't.
"There's no air coming from the vents anymore..." Anne repeated to her friends as she got down from the chair.
Rebecca set down her MP3 player and went straight to Anne to check out what was happening. The British teen definitely didn't hear noises coming from the vent, so like how Anne did she got on the chair and placed her hand upon the vent. Again, no air was coming from it at all.
"No air at all... This is strange." Rebecca stated before she climbed down from the chair.
Suddenly the lights in Anne's bedroom shut off, leaving the three girls in pitch blackness. Obviously this freaked them out pretty severely since they knew that this power outage had to have something to do with the generator situation. Rebecca grabbed her MP3 player and used the small touchscreen on it as a flashlight while she carefully made her way across the room to try and find Yumi's backpack. Thankfully Yumi had developed a habit of keeping her possessions close to her due to the outbreak of the apocalypse, so as a result she hasn't really let her backpack out of her sight no matter how safe she felt. If Rebecca was lucky then Yumi's flashlight was still somewhere in there... As Rebecca walked, her foot got snagged onto something and she tripped, landing directly on top of Anne and sending them both down onto the hardwood floor.
"OW! GODDAMMIT!" Both girls comically shouted at the exact same time after they landed on top of each other.
Yumi cringed with discomfort when she heard her two friends shout in pain like that, but she stayed where she was so she would not end up on the floor like how they did. After another moment or two on the floor, Rebecca and Anne climbed up off of each other and Rebecca grabbed her MP3 to keep looking for Yumi's backpack. Finally Rebecca felt Yumi's backpack leaning against the wall. Rebecca dug around in it and got Yumi's flashlight pretty quickly.
"There, that's better." Rebecca said with relief after she turned on the flashlight.
Now that there was some light in the room, Yumi made her way over to the two girls without any risk of blindly tripping over something. The three teens suddenly could hear some noises coming directly from the hallway outside of Anne's bedroom, so the three girls immediately went straight for the door and opened it just in time to see Jenner himself walking past them. The three girls saw that the other bedroom doors began to open one by one with people such as Odd, Dale and Kyra looking out of their rooms to see what was going on.
"What's going on? Why'd everything turn off?" Daryl asked from his door.
"Energy use is being prioritized..." Jenner replied without any further explanation.
"What? How is air not a priority, doctor?" Charles asked with a tone of irritation.
One by one the rest of the group looked out their bedrooms to see what was happening. When they saw that Dr. Jenner was walking down the hall they all collectively began to follow him, as they were all also wondering what was happening with their lighting and their air.
"It's not up to me. Zone Five is shutting itself down..." Jenner replied to the Australian teenager.
"Hey! Hey! What in the hell does that mean?!" Daryl demanded to know.
Jenner remained silent as he continued to walk. The group continued to follow close behind Jenner and they all went through another hallway which led to the main room. Daryl kept trying to get his attention the entire time, but alas Jenner just kept ignoring him. Naturally this was just worrying the group even more... what the fuck was Jenner not telling them?!
"Hey, man, I'm talking to you! What do you mean it's 'shutting itself down'? How can a building do anything?!" Daryl said to the doctor with exasperation and growing anger.
"You'd be surprised..." Jenner flatly replied with a growing annoyance towards the redneck.
The group continued to follow Jenner down the hallway with worry. When everyone got to the main room they heard a door open, and then they quickly saw Jeremie, Aelita, Shane, Rick, T-Dog, Ulrich and Chase all running towards them from the other side of the room. All seven of them hurried over to follow Jenner with the others until he stopped on the central platform in the room and began staring up at the ticking clock on the wall, suspiciously.
"Jenner, what's happening?" Rick asked with a lot of concern.
"The system is dropping all the non-essential uses of power. It's designed to keep the computers running until the last possible second. That started as we approached the half-hour mark..." Jenner replied.
Jenner gestured up towards the clock for the group to see: thirty-one minutes, twenty-seven seconds left to go...
"Right on schedule..." Jenner commented with a sigh.
The group watched as Jenner tried to walk over to his computer terminal, but the doctor quickly found himself blocked from walking any further by Patrick, Chase and Ulrich since they all stepped in front of him.
"Doc... what the fuck is happening?" Patrick asked with uneasiness.
For a few quiet moments, Jenner glanced at the three teenagers who were blocking his path. None of them would be able to comprehend what was going to happen, and no matter how hard he'd try to explain the situation most if not all of them would be unable to handle it. He was doing them a favor in the end...
"It was the French..." Jenner suddenly told the group.
The French...? The French?! What in God's name did France or the French in general have to do with this topic? Was Dr. Jenner just losing his mind right in front of them?! Even the French teenagers who were among the Lyoko Warriors were confused by what Jenner was saying as well.
"What do you mean? What about the French?" Jeremie inquired.
"They were the last ones to hold out, as far as I know." Jenner replied. "While our people were bolting out the doors and committing suicide in the hallways, they stayed in their labs 'til the end. They thought they were close to a solution..."
They all realized that Jenner was finally giving more of an answer to Shane's question at breakfast that morning. There was indeed others worldwide who were working on a cure for the outbreak, at least for a while after the outbreak. Hopefully one day there could be people who will continue their work.
"What exactly happened to the French?" Kyra questioned out of curiosity.
"The same thing that's happening here... No power grid. Ran out of juice..." Jenner replied with a sigh.
The room went silent for a few more moments before the group heard Jenner begin to chuckle for some reason. He's... chuckling? He's chuckling at a time like this?! What was possibly funny to him at the moment? He's definitely lost it, or at least that's what a lot of members of the group was thinking.
"The world runs on fossil fuel... I mean, how stupid is that?" Jenner commented with a sarcastic chuckle as he looked up at the clock, thinking of the countless gallons of fuel that was used up in the generators in the basement.
Jenner wished that he had more time... If he just had more time then maybe he could have discovered something to beat the virus... but alas there was no time left. Once that remaining half hour goes away, all chances for a cure from the Center of Disease Control would go with it. He wouldn't dare try to live past that.
"Let me tell you-" Shane began to say with anger.
"To hell with it, Shane! I don't even care!" Rick growled to his friend with a similar feeling of anger.
Rick finally had enough. Jenner was obviously a few screws loose, and although he appreciated the safety of the CDC he could no longer trust this son of a bitch around himself or his people. As dangerous as the outside world was at the moment he knew it was time to leave and to get as far from Jenner as they possibly could.
"Everybody, get your stuff! We're getting out of here NOW!" Rick shouted to the rest of the group.
The vast majority of the group immediately began to run back to their rooms to grab all of their luggage and whatever else they brought underground with them, but a few stayed to help Rick with the Jenner situation. However, they all suddenly stopped when they heard an alarm turn on out of nowhere. The loud noise was almost painful to listen to...
"What the fuck is that?!" Verity demanded to know.
"Thirty minutes to decontamination." Vi informed through the PA system.
As everyone was distracted by Vi and the alarm, Jenner managed to slip away and get over to his computer terminal. While no one was looking he managed to start typing in some coding...
"Doc, what the fuck is happening, here?!" Charles demanded to know from the doctor.
"Charles, shut it for a second!" Shane growled before he looked over at everyone else. "Everybody, y'all heard Rick! Get your stuff and let's go!" he ordered.
The group was again about to run back to their rooms to gather their things, but a loud noise not from the alarm suddenly made everyone stop dead in their tracks. Everyone looked at the hardened steel doors which led out to the surface, and much to their horror they saw that they were now locked and shut tight.
The doors... they were shut...?
The doors... were locked...?
JENNER JUST LOCKED THEM IN WITH HIM!
"Jenner, did you just lock us in?! Oh Christ, he locked us in!" Robert gasped as she stared at the doors with disbelief.
"He just fucking locked us in here! That son of a bitch locked us in, guys!" Alexandr exclaimed with pure horror at the thought of being locked up like an animal.
Much of the group hurried to finally go gather their things as Jenner began to create another video log. In all likelihood there was probably no one left alive at the other facilities to hear any of the things he had to say, but regardless there was still some protocols he needed to follow in a situation such as this.
"We've hit the thirty minute window. I am recording..." Jenner began to say to his monitor.
Patrick and Ulrich dashed to the hardened steel doors and the two began to bang upon them in a desperate attempt to get them to open. Alas they were far too strong for mere fists, so they were both forced to give up. The group who went to gather everyone's belongings came back just a few moments later with the group's luggage in tow, but alas there was still several who were furious at Jenner for what he had just done. Both Daryl and Alexandr growled and they tried to rush at the doctor to attack him.
"You son of a bitch!" Daryl roared with fury at how Jenner had locked them in.
"Shane! Alex! STOP!" Aelita directly shouted at the two furious men.
Aelita, Chase, Rick, Shane, Charles and Kyra all ran forward to try and restrain Daryl and Alexandr before either of them could harm Jenner. What were those two idiots even thinking?! The group still needed Jenner alive so he could let them out of the building!
"You locked us in here!" Alexandr growled as he tried to grab Jenner by his hair.
"We can't hurt him, man! He's gotta open the door for all of us!" Kyra exclaimed as she struggled to keep a hold on Alexandr.
Jenner had his head bowed in front of his computer as Daryl managed to get close enough to latch onto his throat with one of his hands. However, he was forced to pull it away after Kyra and Chase yanked him off of the doctor and threw him to the side. Daryl landed hard on the floor as Chase glared down at him.
"We need him alive you fucking moron! How else do you think we're gonna get out of here?!" Chase growled down towards the redneck.
Daryl was furious but he knew that the others were right. No matter how much he wanted to beat Jenner into a pulp, he knew the doctor was the only person who knew how to open the doors before the clock could reach zero. As much as it pained him to say, he'd need to stay calm for the moment. Rick made sure the group was calm before he stormed over to Jenner and glared at him.
"Hey, Jenner, open that door now..." Rick sternly demanded for himself and his group.
"There's no point..." Jenner quietly sighed as a reply. "Everything topside is locked down. The emergency exits are sealed..." he explained.
"Then just open the fucking things so we can leave!" Yumi demanded as she walked over to stand next to Rick.
"That's not something I control. The computers do..." Jenner replied with a hint of consternation. "I told you guys: once that front door closes, it stays closed and it wouldn't open again. You all heard me say that." he stated.
The group fell silent as Jenner continued staring at his computer monitor for several more moments. Finally, Jenner sighed and turned his swivel chair so he could face the angered and worried group in the room with him. He glanced up at the clock to see that there was only twenty-eight minutes left to go before it reached zero. After that... none of them would have a problem anymore.
"It's better this way..." Jenner tried to reason to the group.
"What is? What happens in twenty-eight minutes?!" Jeremie demanded to know from the doctor out of pure fear of what might happen.
Jenner didn't dare answer Jeremie. In fact, Jenner simply turned his swivel chair back around and began to type something on his keyboard. Naturally the group did not like this one bit, so Ulrich angrily walked up to the doctor and roughly grabbed one of his arms.
"What happens in twenty-eight minutes, Jenner?!" Ulrich threateningly asked as he raised up a balled fist, as if threatening to punch the doctor.
Suddenly Jenner shoved away Ulrich's hand and stood up from his chair before he likewise pushed it away. Much of the group was taken aback when they saw Jenner looked absolutely furious towards them.
"Do you know what this place is?! We protected the public from VERY! NASTY! STUFF!" Jenner snapped towards the group.
The group was silent as Jenner had begun to rant. Jenner looked directly at Aelita's eyes and he glared at her: the rage he buried over the last couple of months finally surfacing for everyone to see.
"WEAPONIZED SMALLPOX!" Jenner shouted to the pink-haired super genius.
Jenner walked over to a nearby terminal and he grunted as he lifted a chair. The group flinched a bit when they saw the doctor furiously throw it across the platform and towards another computer, causing the screen on it to shatter and sparks to fly everywhere for a few brief moments.
"EBOLA STRAINS THAT CAN WIPE OUT HALF THE COUNTRY!" Jenner roared, his feelings of failure and regret finally taking over.
Jeremie, Dylan and Chase all ran to get in front of Aelita, all three trying their hardest to protect her as Jenner stormed back over towards her direction. He looked like he was close to a complete mental breakdown...
"Stuff you don't want getting out! EVER!" Jenner shouted directly at the teens and everyone else who would listen.
The enraged doctor continued to glare at the entire group before his anger finally began to recede. With a sigh, Jenner pulled his swivel chair back over to his desk and he sat back down on it as he began to calm down. After a few more moments he was calm enough to keep talking to the group.
"...In the event of a catastrophic power failure such as in a terrorist attack, for example... 'HIT's' are deployed to prevent any dangerous organisms from getting out." Jenner explained to the group.
"What exactly are HITs, doctor? What do they do?" Rebecca asked the doctor.
Jenner solemnly looked at the British teen for a moment before he looked back up at the clock, closing his eyes as he thought of what was going to happen a short time from then. He hoped it was a peaceful as his superiors claimed it would be...
"Vi, define." Jenner requested as he watched the clock tick away.
"HITs: High-Impulse Thermobaric fuel-air explosives consist of a two-stage aerosol ignition that produces a blast wave of significantly greater power and duration than any other known explosive except nuclear. The vacuum-pressure effect ignites the oxygen at between 5,000 and 6,000 degrees and is useful when the greatest loss of life and damage to structures is desired." Vi explained to everyone.
Silence and reality began to set in for the entire group after they heard this. . Explosives...? There was explosives set to go off to destroy the entire Center for Disease Control facility? But... they were still locked inside. They were locked inside, and the building was going to be obliterated into high heaven.
They were all going to die.
With horror and utter realization about what was going to happen the group took in Jenner's words as best as they could. Aelita and Jeremie were so frightened at the possibility of their deaths that they hugged each other as tight as they could. Yumi simply held a trembling hand against her mouth as her face went pale from shock, and Odd simply fell back into a chair and looked at Jenner with complete disbelief at what he was hearing.
"It sets the air on fire..." Jenner quietly explained.
With tears in their eyes, Rebecca and Dylan tightly locked hands and gave each other a deep loving kiss to calm each other as Ulrich desperately went straight for the door with an axe borrowed from Shane. Both Alexandr and Daryl angrily ran to join him in trying to tear the hardened steel barriers down, but Jenner knew that their actions were of no use.
"No pain... An end to sorrow, grief... regret..." Jenner quietly went on to explain to the group, trailing off.
Anne looked like she was about to have a full-blown heart attack from the sheer fear of the death that Jenner was about to bring down upon the group, but Jennifer and Chase quickly went to console her as best as they could. Despite this, both Jennifer and Chase was easily just as scared as Anne was...
Verity and Patrick also began hugging each other: the couple was crying, and both were quietly telling the other how much they loved them and how it wasn't fair that they couldn't grow old together.
Robert, however, was quietly sitting in a chair as he watched was was happening. Although he didn't want to die yet, he consoled himself on the fact that he was going to see Amy again very soon, whereas Kyra and Charles were holding onto each other for comfort.
Miranda? She was quite simply pissed off and she desperately wanted to rip Dr. Jenner's spine out through his own mouth, but thankfully she was being held back by T-Dog and Lori.
Jenner simply looked up towards the terrified group with an expression of sadness on his face. He knew this was better for both himself and for them, even if they didn't realize that as fact. There was no hope left out there...
"An end to everything..."