The group surrounds Jenner in the large room with the screens. He speaks to the air.
"Give me the playback of TS-19."
Vi responds. "Playback of TS-19."
He looks to the group. "Few people ever got to see this."
Carl leans against Y/N who ruffles his hair. "Is that a brain?"
Jenner nods, not taking his eyes away from the large screen. "An extraordinary one. Not that it mattered in the end." He inhales and speaks to Vi again. "Take us in for E.I.V."
"Enhanced internal view."
Blue pops of color start to appear throughout the brain and Y/N tilts her head. "What are those lights?"
"It's 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. And human." Jenner responds.
Daryl scoffs. "You ever make sense?"
"Those are synapses, electric impulses in the brain that carry all the messages. They determine everything a person says does or thinks from the moment of birth to the moment of death."
Andrea crosses her arms. "Death? That's what this is, a vigil?"
Jenner sighs. "Yes. Or rather the playback of the vigil."
"This person died? Who?" Andrea asks.
"Test subject 19. Someone who was bitten and infected... And volunteered to have us record the process." He pauses. "Vi, scan forward to the first event."
"Scanning to first event."
The blue lights start to fade and pops of red appear.
"What is that?" Glenn asks.
"It invades the brain like meningitis. The adrenal glands hemorrhage, the brain goes into shutdown, then the major organs. Then death. Everything you ever were or ever will be... Gone."
Y/N inhales sharply and Carl grabs her hand. She glances at him and gives it a squeeze.
Sophia, who's hugging Carol, sniffs. "Is that what happened to Jim?"
Carol nods. "Yes." She whispers.
"Scan to the second event." Jenner says.
"Scanning to second event."
"The resurrection times vary wildly. We had reports of it happening in as little as three minutes. The longest we heard of was eight hours. In the case of this patient, it was two hours, one minute... Seven seconds." He says.
The brain, now dark, has more pops of a deep red that appears minimally.
Lori rubs her arm. "It restarts the brain?"
"No, just the brain stem. Basically, it gets them up and moving."
"But they're not alive?"
He waves his arm at the screen. "You tell me."
Carol shakes her head. "It's nothing like before. It's dark."
"Dark, lifeless, dead. The frontal lobe, the neocortex, the human part... That doesn't come back. The you part. Just a shell driven by mindless instinct." He says solemnly.
The group goes silent as they watch the screen. Suddenly a flash appears and the head stops moving.
"God. What was that?" Lori asks.
"He shot the patient in the head." Y/N mumbles.
"Vi, power down the main screen and the workstations."
YOU ARE READING
Sheriff's Lover ||| Rick Grimes x Reader (TWD x Reader)
Fanfiction32 year-old Y/N was all alone on the streets of Atlanta when a man in a sheriffs uniform trots down the road on top of a horse. She decides to join him on his journey to find his family because she doesn't want to be left behind. The two run into a...
