Rick pressed his face to the camera and begged. "There are children out here. Please, we're not infected. Please!"
Nothing happened for what felt like an hour. Merle muttered that this was a waste of time. Glenn tried the intercom. Then, with a low groan of metal, the door slid open a few inches, and a voice spoke through the gap.
"How many of you are there?"
Inside, the lights came on one bank at a time. We rode an elevator down to a lab that was cleaner than anything I'd seen since the old world. A tired-looking man in a white coat introduced himself as Dr. Edwin Jenner. He was the last one in the building. His computer, he said, called itself Vi.
I watched the way the survivors reacted. Carl looked at the showers like they were treasure. Carol cried a little over the faucet. Dale couldn't stop touching the walls. Even Merle shut up for a full minute when Jenner brought out the wine.
I took a seat near the exit, where the dogs could watch the door.
At some point, the system flickered in my vision.
Quest: Leave the CDC before zero hour. Reward: 100 Z coins, plus the trust of those you save. Penalty: −10 Z coins per survivor lost.
I sat very still and let the quest window fade. It was the first time the system had told me the exact moment the clock would end, and that made me nervous. I had known when the building would blow since the day I arrived. The system was just confirming it.
Dinner was wine, bread and a story I'd heard before. Jenner showed us a recording of a brain scan, a person dying and waking up again, and a rapidly spreading red that swallowed the whole screen. He talked about a cure. Then he said that he wasn't sure there was one.
Beside me, Rick's hands were tight on his knees. He already knew everything Jenner was about to say, and he held his face perfectly still.
"Everyone is infected," Jenner said. "Whether you're bitten or not."
The room went silent. Andrea was the first to speak, hoarse. "What's the point of any of this, then?"
"Time," Jenner said. "Maybe nothing else."
I stood up and asked the question I'd been rehearsing all night. "Doctor. What happens at zero?"
He didn't answer. He didn't need to. His eyes went to the ceiling, then to the floor, and I saw a man who had decided to stay.
Later, while the others slept, I found him in the lab again, standing in front of a white wall that held a clock. It said 1:12:44.
"You don't have to die here," I told him.
"Everyone dies," he said calmly.
"Come with us. There's a camp. There are people who'll listen to you. There's a girl named Rose who would like to meet a scientist."
He smiled sadly. "That's kind of you, Jake. But the fuel runs out in about an hour, and so does my reason to keep going. I'd like to spend the end of it somewhere that doesn't smell of smoke."
I wanted to argue. I'd never been good at letting people go. But Jim had taught me something about that, and I stood with Jenner in silence until the clock hit 1:00:00.
Then I went to wake everyone.
Fireproof
The building started locking us in at 0:09:00.
It began with a hiss from the vents and a soft chime. Then every door in the hall sealed with a bang, and Jenner's voice came over the intercom, apologetic. "I'm sorry. I'd hoped you'd sleep."
Rick ran to the main door. "Open it! Please, you have to open it!"
"Decontamination," Jenner said. "It's better this way."
Andrea went white. Shane swore. Carl started to cry. Jake, I told myself. Think.
I had known this was coming. I had a plan. I opened the store and bought what I needed.
Purchased: 2 grenades (40 coins each). Wallet: 451 Z coins
Merle stared at them. "Where'd you get those?"
"I'm full of surprises," I said. "Everybody back."
Rick turned from the door, looking at me, and I met his eyes. He didn't ask. He just stepped aside and pulled Carl with him. Lori and Carol ushered the kids behind a lab bench while Daryl and Glenn dragged Andrea out of the way.
The lobby glass was reinforced, thick enough to stop bullets. I pulled the pin on the first grenade and tossed it at the base of the window. We all ducked.
The blast cracked the glass in a spiderweb. The second grenade finished it. Daylight and smoke poured through the gap, and Dale and Rick were already hauling people out. Glenn went first, then Lori and Carl, then Morales and Carol with Sophia. Rose and the dogs scrambled over the broken glass like it was a playground.
At the doorway, I saw Jacqui standing very still.
"Come on," I said.
She looked at the lab, at Jenner behind the glass, and I knew she was staying. "I'm tired, Jake," she said. "I've been tired for months. I'd like to rest."
I wanted to drag her, but I didn't. I had been dragging people all night. "Okay," I said, and the system flashed in my eye.
Survivor lost: Jacqui. Penalty: −10 Z coins.
I ignored it. Andrea stood beside the broken glass, and for a moment I thought she was going to stay too. Then Dale caught her arm.
"No," Dale said fiercely. "Not you. Not while I'm still alive."
Andrea stared at him, then at me. Then she climbed through the glass.
We ran. Behind us, the lobby filled with white light, and the building shook once, a deep boom I felt in my teeth. A wall of heat rolled over the parking lot. When I looked back, the CDC was a bright column of smoke, and Jenner and Jacqui were gone.
The survivors stood in the road, coughing and staring. Carl was the first to speak.
"Did we make it?"
"We did," Rick said, and pulled him close.
Nobody cheered. I sat down in the dirt with Fenrir leaning against my shoulder, and I checked the wallet.
Wallet: 541 Z coins Quest complete: Leave the CDC. Survivors lost: 1. Reward: 100 Z coins, minus penalty.
I didn't open the number. I looked at the smoke and said a name quietly to nobody. Then Rick sat down beside me and said nothing, and that was exactly what I needed.
The Highway
Walt's van found us on the road two days later, as I'd arranged. He and his builders had waited with the supplies, and the sight of the old gray beard climbing out of the cab nearly made me tear up. The quarry was behind us now, and we needed somewhere else to go.
We took the highway north.
The road was a graveyard. Cars stood in rows for miles, abandoned and rusted, with bones in a few of them and walkers in more. Dale's RV gave out near the middle of the traffic jam, overheated and steaming. While Dale and Merle worked on the engine, everyone else waited in the shade.
Then the herd arrived.
It started as a low hum. I looked up and saw hundreds of walkers pouring down the highway, a river of rotting bodies that went on forever. "Down!" I shouted. "Get under the cars!"
We all dove. I pulled Rose and Dawn under a pickup and held my breath. Through the gap I watched their feet drag past, hundreds of them, their shadows rolling over us like a slow tide. Sophia screamed once from under a minivan, and then she bolted.
I knew what was coming. I had hoped to change it. I'd sat awake at the CDC thinking about this exact moment.
"Sophia!" Carol shrieked. "Sophia, no!"
Two walkers broke away from the herd and chased her into the woods. Rick took off after them, and Shane followed. Rick shot one of the walkers, then lost the girl in the trees.
When the herd finally passed, there were three of us left on the road: Rick, me, and Carol, whose face was gray with terror.
"I'll find her," Rick said hoarsely.
"I know where to start," I said.
I whistled, and Fenrir trotted over with his tail low. I had spent months learning how to use Taming Mastery. I knelt, put a hand on his neck, and asked him through the bond to find her.
He went rigid, and then his nose dropped to the ground. A minute later all four dogs were running into the trees with Rose and me close behind.
It took two hours. We crossed a creek and a ridge, then a field of tall grass where Rex found the first sign: a small pink ribbon tied to a branch. Thor yipped and darted ahead, and Dawn followed.
Sophia was curled in the hollow of a fallen tree, shaking, with her knees pulled up to her chest. When she saw the dogs she began to cry, and then she saw Rose behind them.
"Rose?"
"We found you," Rose said, and fell on top of her.
I carried Sophia back through the woods, with the dogs circling us the entire way. When she saw Carol, the two of them collapsed together on the road, and the whole camp watched. Even Merle looked away.
Quest complete: Find Sophia. Reward: 50 Z coins, and the trust of every survivor on the road. Wallet: 591 Z coins
Carol grabbed my hand and held it in both of hers, unable to speak. I nodded once, and that was all either of us needed.
That was one thing the show had gotten wrong, and I'd finally put it right.