12 The CDC

GRUNT SPLAT

"Jesus, just stab it with a knife. You're splashing that shit everywhere." I said to Daryl, who had just splattered walker brain matter and blood all over me from him taking a pickaxe to their head.

"Bite me." he said before walking off while Glenn and I dragged the body to the burn pile.

"How many more?" asked Glenn who was noticeably tired from dragging walker corpses all day.

"Still a few more. And we still have to bury the ones from the group." I said as I wiped the sweat that was trickling into my eyes.

"Just give me a sec first." he said, resting.

"Here, I thought you might be thirsty from working under the sun so I brought you some water." said Amy, handing me a bottle of water.

"Thanks." I said, drinking some and pouring a little on my face to cool down.

"What about me?" asked Glenn who looked worse than I did.

"Oh, sorry. I forgot." said Amy.

"Here." I said tossing him the water bottle while chuckling.

"Thank you." he said, drinking the rest of the water.

"You guys need help?" asked Amy, as she put her hair into a ponytail, revealing a mermaid necklace that she did not have the day before.

"No, we're fine. Nice necklace though. Is it new?"

"Oh, yeah. Andrea gave it to me for my birthday." she said, fiddling around with it.

"Today's your birthday?"

"Yup."

"Happy birthday to you then." I said.

"Thank you." she said, smiling.

"Hold on a sec." I said before walking off to my backpack, which had been given back to me along with my gun and baseball bat after the walkers attacked yesterday, and reached inside pretending to get something while in actuality I took it out from my inventory.

"Here. It's not much but considering I've only known you for less than a day, I think it's pretty good." I said, handing her a nice silver necklace and some lotions I had found in the apartment I stayed at.

"Matt, I wasn't telling you it's my birthday so you could give me a present." she said, not yet accepting my gifts.

"I know, but this stuff is more useful to you than it is to me. Consider it you doing me a favor by taking it off my hands and not accepting a gift if it makes you feel better."

"Okay then. Thank you." she said, accepting the gifts.

"A walker got him! A walker bit Jim!" said Jacqui, causing everyone to turn to look in their direction, weapons at the ready.

"I'm okay. I'm okay." he said backing up from the encroaching group.

"Show it to us." said Daryl, pickaxe at the ready, while Jim picked up a shovel to protect himself, but T-Dog was able to get behind him and grab him.

Then Daryl went up and pulled up his shirt, exposing the walker bite.

"I'm okay. I'm okay." he repeated as everyone backed away from him.

"Jim just sit over there for a bit. Please." said Dale, pointing at a spot a little away from the camp.

"I'm okay. I'm okay." he said as he went to go sit down while the rest of the group came together to talk.

"What do we do?" asked Rick.

"I say just put a pickaxe in his head and get it over with." said Daryl.

"Is that what'd you want if it were you?" asked Shane.

"Yeah, and I'd thank you while you did it."

"I hate to say it, but maybe Daryl's right." said Dale.

"He's not a wild animal, a rabid dog, to be put down, Dale."

"I'm not suggesting-"

"He's a sick, sick man. We start down that road, where do we draw the line." said Rick.

"Except he kind of is a rabid dog." I said, causing everyone to turn and look at me.

"It sounds messed up, but just like a rabid dog, the disease will spread until he becomes a former shell of himself who only has one thing on his mind, to kill. And just like a rabid dog, you have to put down the problem before it spreads."

"Listen to the new guy." said Daryl.

"What if we can get him some help? I heard the CDC was working on a cure." said Rick.

"Everyone's heard that. It's a stretch." said Shane.

"Why? If there's any government left at all, any structure, it makes sense the CDC would be protected. It's our best shot."

"Look we all want that too. And that's why we should go to Fort Benning. If any place is going to be up and running it's Fort Benning. They have the firepower to stay afloat."

"But that's 100 miles in the opposite direction." said Lori.

"That's right. But it's away from the hot zone."

"The military was on the front lines, you think that place is still up and running? No, the CDC is our best choice and Jim's only hope."

"You guys can look for aspirin all you want, someone has to have the balls to do what needs to be done." said Daryl as he ran to Jim and was about to swing his pickaxe before being stopped by Rick who had his gun pointed at Daryl.

"We don't kill the living."

"That's funny coming from a man whose gun is pointed at my head." said Daryl as he put the pickaxe down before walking off.

"Come on, Jim, I'll take you somewhere safe." said Rick.

"Let's get back to work people." said Shane.

~

After burning the rest of the walkers, we loaded the group members onto the back of a truck and went to bury them, where we also held a bit of a funeral before returning back to the camp.

And about a half-hour later, Shane had something to say.

"I've been thinking about Rick's plan. Now look, there are no guarantees either way. But I've known this man for a long time and I trust his instincts. I say the most important thing here is we need to stay together. So those of you that agree, we leave first thing in the morning." said Shane.

"Let's turn in early. We have a long day ahead of us." said Rick before everyone dispersed.

"Matt." said Amy following me as I walked to a tent I had been given.

"What's up?"

"Are you going to the CDC?" she asked.

"Yeah, might as well. I'm tired of wandering around by myself so I'll stick around."

"Cool. And thank you again for the gifts." she said before kissing me on the cheek.

"Good night." she said, walking away in the direction of Andrea who was looking at me.

"Good night indeed." I said as I entered my tent to sleep.

~

Early the next morning, everyone in the camp was getting ready to leave, and while I was putting my tent away, someone decided to visit me.

"Hey." said Andrea.

"How can I help you?" I asked as I continued to take down my tent.

"Look, I don't know what's going on between you and Amy, but I want it to stop."

"Nothing is going on between us, but if there was, I was under the impression she's her own person who can make her own choices."

"If these were normal times, then yeah. But they're not. Fear is a hell of an accelerator for feelings and I don't want her to fall in love with you, and then you die."

"Well I can promise you one thing, I won't die."

"Right. Just keep it civil. Please. She may seem optimistic and tough, but she's fragile. And I don't think she'll be able to take losing another loved one." she said before walking off.

"That was rough." said Glenn.

"You heard all that?"

"Y-yeah. Sorry."

"No problem. Can you give me a hand, I don't really know how to put away a tent."

"Haha, sure."

~

"Everybody listen up. Those of you with CBs, we're gonna be on channel 40. 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?" said Shane.

"We're uh, we're not going." said Morales.

"We have family in Birmingham. We're gonna take our chances there." said his wife.

"You go on your own, you won't have people to watch your back." said Shane.

"We know."

"Okay then." said Rick before rummaging through the gun bag and taking out a pistol and some ammo before handing it over to Morales.

"Good luck."

"Thank you." he said as they hugged and said their goodbyes.

"Let's go." said Shane before everyone got in their respective vehicles.

I got in T-Dog's van with T-Dog, Andrea, and Amy, which was not at all awkward.

"God be with us." said T-Dog as we started the drive.

~

Halfway through the trip, we had to stop the caravan because the RV's radiator hose was shot. And while we waited for Shane and T-Dog to get one from a gas station a little ways away, Jim had made his decision.

So we left him behind at a tree so he can live out the rest of his days and everyone said their goodbyes to him before we continued on.

And a while later, we were pulling up on the CDC.

"Jesus." said Andrea as we saw a heavily fortified CDC with all kinds of military armaments and dead bodies everywhere.

As we got out of the vehicles the first thing that I noticed was the smell. The exact same smell I got hit with when I first arrived in this world.

"Let's go." said Rick as we began to quietly make our way to the building with weapons at the ready.

'That's a lot of stuff I can take. I might have to sneak out in the middle of the night somehow. I'll figure something out.' I thought as we reached the building only to be met with shutters blocking any way in.

"Nothing?" asked Shane as he tried to lift the shutters before pounding on them.

"There's nobody in there." said T-Dog.

"Then why are the shutters down?" I asked.

"Walkers." said Daryl before shooting one of them with his crossbow.

"You led us into a graveyard!" said Daryl.

"He made a call." said Shane.

"It was the wrong damn call!"

"Shut up!" said Shane to Daryl, pushing him away before looking at Rick.

"Rick, this is a dead end. Do you hear me? No blame."

"Where are we gonna go?" asked Carol.

"She's right. We can't be here, this close to the city after dark." said Lori.

"Matt, you're good with computers, can't you hack in and open the doors somehow?" asked Jacqui.

"I have no computer and there's no way for me to enter their system. These types of government buildings operate on a closed system so I would have to directly plug in." I said.

"Fort Benning is our only option." said Shane.

"On what? No food, no fuel. That's 100 miles." said Andrea.

"125." said Glenn.

"We need to think of something now." said Lori.

"Let's go. Let's get out of here." said Shane.

"The camera moved." I said.

"You're imagining things!" said Andrea.

"It moved." I said to Rick as he walked up to the shutters and started pounding on them.

"Please! Let us in! We'll die out here! We have children! If you don't let us in, you're killing us!" he yelled as he was being dragged away by Lori.

HISS CLANG

With the shutters open and the light spilling out, it made it seem like we were about to enter the gates of heaven.

"Daryl, you cover the back." said Shane as we started going inside the building.

"Close those doors. Watch for walkers." said Dale.

"Hello?" said Rick.

CLICK

Looking in the direction where the sound of a gun being cocked came from, we saw a man in pajamas pointing a gun at us.

"Anybody infected?" he asked.

"No." said Rick.

"Why are you here? What do you want?" he asked.

"A chance." said Rick.

"That's asking an awful lot these days."

"I know." said Rick before the man went into thought for a few seconds.

"A blood test. That's the price of admission."

"We can do that." agreed Rick.

"You got stuff to bring in, you do it now. Once these doors close, they stay closed." he said before a few of us ran out to our vehicles and brought back the things we would need.

"Vi, seal the main entrance. Kill the power up here." said the man after swiping a card on a terminal.

CLANG

"Rick Grimes."

"Dr. Ediwn Jenner." he said before we followed him into an elevator.

"Doctors always go around packing heat like that?" asked Daryl as we rode the elevator.

"There were plenty left lying around. I familiarized myself. But you look harmless enough." he said before looking at Carl.

"Except you. I'll have to keep my eye on you." he said to Carl, jokingly.

The elevator doors opened up into a long white hallway which we went down, following Jenner.

"Are we underground?" asked Carol.

"Yes. Claustrophobic?"

"A little."

"Don't worry. You get used to it." he said as he led us into a giant room full of workstations.

"Vi, bring up the lights in the big room." he said.

HUMM

"Welcome to Zone 5."

"Where is everybody?" asked Rick.

"I'm it."

"What about the person you were speaking with?" asked Lori.

"Vi, say hello to our guests. Tell them welcome."

"Hello, guests. Welcome." said a feminine voice.

"Holy shit. Is that AI?" I asked, playing it up.

"You know about AI?"

"I love computers, of course I know about AI. So is it?"

"Partially. I don't know all the details, but it's a virtual intelligence computer in charge of running the day-to-day operations." said Jenner.

"What's AI?" asked Amy.

"AI or artificial intelligence, a machine that has the ability to think like a human. It's been theorized for years now but there were never any significant breakthroughs. Seems like they were hiding the research." I said.

"So it's alive?" asked Dale.

"Not really. At least not this one. I'm assuming it only follows commands and pre-set programs?"

"Yes."

"So cool. Where is the supercomputer? Can I see it?"

"Why?"

"Cause I love computers and I won't ever get the chance to interact with a supercomputer or an AI again. Not like I can steal the technology to take over the world." I joked.

"Fair point. I'll take you to it later."

"Sweet."

"So, you're it?" asked Rick, bringing us back on topic.

"I'm it. Come, let's do these blood tests."

~

After the blood tests were complete, we were taken to the cafeteria where we ate like kings.

"Wine?" asked Amy, who had already had a few glasses and had been not so subtly initiating more physical contact with me.

"No, thanks." I said.

"Oh come on, don't be the odd one out." she said.

"Fine, just a little bit." I said before she poured me more than just a little.

"Oops." she said laughing while Andrea gave me a look before I took a small sip.

'Blegh, hate wine.'

"You know in Italy and France even the children have wine with dinner." said Dale, referring to Carl.

"When he's in Italy or France, he can have some." said Lori.

"Oh come on. It can't hurt." said Rick

"Your call." she said chuckling.

"There you are, young lad." said Dale, giving Carl a little bit.

"Eww." said Carl after taking a sip, causing everyone to laugh.

"It seems to me we still haven't properly thanked our host. Thank you." said Rick raising a glass to Jenner.

"He's more than just our host. To the doc." said T-Dog.

"Cheers." said everyone while raising their glass to Jenner, who unenthusiastically tipped his glass to us.

"So, where's everyone else? Why are you the only one here?" asked Shane, instantly bringing down the mood.

"Shane, perhaps it's not the best time." said Rick.

"That's why we're here isn't it?" he retorted.

"A lot of people left to be with their families. And when things got worse, the rest bolted."

"Every last one?"

"No, many couldn't face walking out the door. They opted out. There was a rash of suicides. That was a bad time." he said, the sadness in his voice evident.

"Why didn't you leave?" I asked.

"I just kept working. Hoping to do some good."

"Dude, you are such a buzzkill." said Glenn to Shane.

"Let's go see where you'll be staying shall we?" said Jenner as everyone stood up and started to follow him.

"Matt. Matt. Matt." said Amy, shaking me.

"Yes, Amy?"

"Do you think I'm pretty?" she said loudly, making everyone look over at us with smiles, except for Shane, who was still angry over something or other, and Andrea, for obvious reasons.

"Okay, how about you go with your sister?" I said, trying to unload the drunk onto Andrea.

"Okay." she said, as she happily went over to her sister before hugging her.

A short walk later and we were in the area where we would stay for the night.

"Most of the facility is powered down including housing so you'll have to make do here. The couches are comfortable but there are cots in storage if you like. There's a rec room down the hall that your kids might enjoy. Just don't plug in any of the video games. Or anything that draws power. The same applies, if you shower, go easy on the hot water."

"Hot water?" asked Glenn with a smile.

"That's what the man said." said T-Dog with a smile as they both went up ahead to take a hot shower.

"You wanted to see the supercomputer, right? Follow me." said Jenner before I followed him.

"Can I ask why the CDC has such an advanced AI?" I asked as we made our way through the facility.

"Truth be told, I don't know. Never really thought about it. One day they told us they would be trying some new tech to help us with our work and everyone loved it. Made life a whole lot easier. Didn't really think about much more than that. Sorry." he said as we arrived at a security door that he unlocked with his card.

"Phew." I whistled as I laid eyes on what was inside the room.

"Stunning, isn't it?"

"More than stunning. May I?" I asked, pointing at the terminal.

"Go ahead. I have some things to do in the big room so feel free to stay as long as you like." he said before leaving the room.

"Vi?" I asked.

"How may I help you?"

"How big is your core programming?"

"I'm unable to answer that question."

"Are there others like you?"

"I'm unable to answer that question."

"Okay."

'Let me see your secrets.' I thought as I was about to start delving into the programming.

KNOCK KNOCK

"Matt, are you in there?" said Amy.

'Ah, let me deal with this real quick.'

"Vi, open the door." I said before the door opened to reveal a slightly more put-together Amy.

"Sorry, were you in the middle of doing something important?" she asked.

"No, I was just about to start, but what's up? You seem sobered up already. It's only been a few minutes since I last saw you."

"Throwing up will do that to you." she said, chuckling.

"I bet. So what can I do for you?"

"Can I come in?"

"Please." I said as I moved back into the room, allowing her to enter and the door to close.

"I want to apologize for how I acted earlier."

"It's okay."

"No, it's not okay. You've been really nice to me and I've been acting like an idiot."

"Amy, it's okay."

"But I think it's because I really like you. And I know Andrea told you to stay away from me because it's easy to make things more complicated, but I don't care. I don't even care if you don't feel the same way. I just want to feel something." she said before kissing me.

"Okay. But I want you to know this isn't forever." I said.

"Shut up."

~

Opening my eyes, I looked down to see Amy covered in my shirt and sleeping soundly.

Putting on my glasses that I had taken off to go to sleep, I saw that I had only napped for two hours after Amy and I had slept together.

'Good that means I still have time to do what I want before we leave here.' I thought as I quietly removed Amy's head from my arm before standing up and going to the terminal.

'Time to see what you're made of.'

~

'This is way too much for me to remember.'

After a half-hour of cracking the constantly changing encryption, I had finally found the core programming for Vi, but it was way too much for me to remember.

'I'll use the Data Extraction function on the glasses to plug into the terminal and store the core programming that way I can look over it in detail when I'm back in my world.' I thought as I pulled a cable from my glasses and connected it to the terminal before the data I wanted started to get copied over.

A few minutes later and it was done, but before I disconnected from the terminal, I added some override sequences to delay the things that would happen tomorrow.

After that was done, I went to lie down on the floor with Amy.

~

Waking up again, I looked down to see that Amy was gone.

'I should take a shower, I smell rank.'

After a thorough shower, I made my way to the cafeteria where almost everyone else was already eating breakfast, including Amy.

"Morning." said Dale, looking at me with a knowing smirk.

"Morning everyone."

"Eggs?" asked T-Dog.

"Please and thank you." I said, grabbing a plate and sitting down in the only free spot which coincidentally happened to be next to Amy.

"How'd you sleep?" said Amy quietly.

"Good, and you."

"Very good." she said, smiling.

"Glad to hear it." I said as I ate my breakfast.

"Morning, everyone." said Jenner as he walked in.

"Doc, I don't mean to slam you with questions first thing-" said Dale.

"But you will anyway."

"We didn't come here for the eggs." said Andrea as everyone fell silent for a few moments.

"Okay, follow me." he said before we all followed him to the big room.

"Vi, give me a playback of TS-19." he said before a bunch of scans of a brain started to be played on the big screen.

"Few people ever got a chance to see this."

"Zoom in for EIV." he said before the screen changed to show a bunch of synapses firing.

"What are those lights?" asked Shane.

"A person's life. Experiences, memories. It's everything. Somewhere in all that organic wiring, all those ripples of light, is you, the thing that makes you unique. Every single thing about you. From the moment you are born to the moment you die."

"Die? Is this a vigil?" asked Rick.

"Yes. Or rather the playback of the vigil."

"This person died? Who?" asked Amy.

"Test Subject 19. Someone who was bitten and let us record every moment of that process. Vi, scan forward to the first event."

The scan of the bright and lit-up synapses had become dark.

"What is that?" asked Glenn.

"It invades the brain like meningitis." he said as the video showed the brain scan turn completely dark.

"Scan to the second event. The resurrection times vary wildly. We had reports of it happening in as little as three minutes. The longest one was 8 hours. In the case of this patient, it was 2 hours, 1 minute, and 7 seconds."

The scan of the dead brain slowly began to get lit up again, but unlike the bright one from when the patient was alive, this one looked sinister.

"It restarts the brain?" asked Lori.

"No, just the brain stem. Basically, it gets them up and moving."

"But they're not alive?" asked Rick.

"You tell me."

"It's nothing like before."

"The You part doesn't come back."

The video then showed a bright object pass through the brain.

"God what was that?" asked Amy.

"He shot his patient in the head." I said.

"Vi, power down the main screen and the workstations."

"You have no idea what it is do you?" asked Andrea.

"It could be microbial. Viral. Fungal. Parasitic."

"Or the wrath of God?" said Jacqui.

"There is that."

"Somebody must know something." said Andrea.

"There are others, right? Other facilities?"

"There may be some. People like me."

"How can you not know?" asked Rick, agitated at the possibility of there never being a cure.

"Everything went down. Communications, directives, all of it. I've been in the dark for almost a month."

"There's nothing left anywhere? Nothing? That's what you're really saying, right?" asked Andrea to which he only stayed quiet, all but confirming.

"Jesus."

"Dr. Jenner, I know this has been taxing for you and I hate to ask one more question, but that clock is counting down. What happens at zero?" asked Dale, pointing at a digital clock on the wall.

"The basement generators run out of fuel." he said before awkwardly walking off.

"And then?" asked Rick.

"Then this place blows up." I said, causing everyone to look at me and stopping Jenner in his tracks.

"What?" asked Amy.

"What do you mean blows up?" asked Rick.

"How do you know that?" asked Jenner.

"So he's right?! This place blows up?!" said Lori while Carl and Sophia started crying.

"How do you know that?" asked Jenner again.

"I hacked Vi."

"Y-you hacked Vi? You hacked one of the most advanced AIs in the world?" he asked, dumbfounded.

"Yeah, it was pretty easy too, not to toot my own horn. And I found the protocol for catastrophic power failure which is meant to blow this place up so as to not let any of the things held here out into the public."

"Oh my god!" said Amy.

"We have to get out of here! Everyone get your things, now! We're leaving!" said Rick.

"You can't." said Jenner.

"Why not?! So we can die here?!" said Shane.

"I told you when the doors close, they wouldn't open again. I said that."

"Matt, you hacked the thing. Can't you do something?" asked Amy.

"Sure. Vi, initiate override sequence, password 8008135." I said.

"Password accepted. Override sequence initiated." said Vi.

"What did you do?!" asked Jenner.

"Calm down. I know how dangerous it would be to let the things you have here out, so I just overrode the shutters and the doors. The explosion is still on track." I said.

"Oh my god, you're amazing." said Amy, hugging me.

"Thank you, but we should all hurry up and leave."

"Go!" said Rick as we all started to run, except for Jacqui.

"Jacqui! Come on!" said T-Dog.

"No. I'm staying. I'm tired of running. I can't do it anymore." she said.

"But Jacqui-"

"Please. I don't want to fight anymore. Just go." she said, crying.

"T-Dog, come on man! Let's go!" said Shane, dragging him away.

"Matt." said Jenner.

"What?" I asked, stopping.

"There's something you should know."

"About the virus. I know. I saw." I said.

"I see. Good luck." he said before sitting down.

"Later, doc." I said before continuing to run to where I left my stuff.

Once we got our stuff, we all went up the emergency stairs and out the doors.

"Where are we going?" asked Dale.

"We'll figure that out later! Just drive for now!" said Rick as we all drove off and a few minutes later, we saw the explosion.

'The farm next.'