It Comes With The Name

Chapter 9: All Good Things Must Come To An End

"Are you hung over?" Carl smirked as his dad walked into the kitchen. "Mom said you would be."

Rick sighed, grabbing a plate of eggs from T-dog and joining his family at the table. "Mom is right."

"Mom has that annoying habit." Lori laughed lightly from beside him.

Rick was glad she seemed to be doing better this morning. She had been quite upset when she came to bed last night and he'd figured it had been all the stress of the current world.

"Hey Carl, go wake up Aunt Lauren?" Rick asked, noticing his sister wasn't at the table. His son nodded, running off down the hallway.

"Eggs?" T-dog offered the rest of the group. "They're powdered but- I do em good." He chuckled.

He was cut off by a loud groan from Glenn, who had obviously drank way more than he should've last night.

"Jesus," Lauren laughed as Carl returned to the kitchen with his Aunt. Lauren made a B-line for T-dog and his powdered eggs and nudged Glenn on her way. "You look like shit."

Glenn groaned louder this time. "Don't ever ever ever let me drink again."

The table chuckled. T-dog scooped some eggs onto Laurens plate and tossed Tank a piece of sausage. Tank happily took his food and placed himself underneath Carl's chair.

"Hey." Rick greeted as Shane walked in and made a beeline for the coffee maker.

"Hey."

"You feel as bad as I do?" Rick laughed, clearly not noticing the sudden silence from both his wife and sister.

Shane muttered back. "Worse."

"The hell happened to you?" T-dog asked, walking closer to Shane. "Your neck?" Noticing three bright red scratch marks.

Shane sat beside Lauren and shrugged. "Must've done it in my sleep."

"I've never seen you do that before." Rick observed. Lauren purposefully grabbed her plate and opted to eat her breakfast standing. She currently wanted to be as far away from Shane as possible.

"Me neither." Shane said, looking between Lauren and Lori. "Not like me at all."

Upon Dale and Andrea's questions, after breakfast, Jenner led the group into the computer room they had seen the night before.

"Give me a playback of TS-19." Jenner spoke into one of the computers. The screen at the front of the room suddenly lit up, showing some sort of brain scan.

"Take us in for EIV." He instructed.

"Now showing Enhanced Internal View." The computer voice spoke. Looking further inside the brain, lights could be seen running all throughout it.

"What are all those lights?" Shane asked.

"It's a person's life." The Dr. explained. "Experiences, memories. It's everything. Somewhere in that organic wiring, all those ripples of light is you. The thing that makes you unique. And human."

"You don't make sense ever?" Daryl asked.

Jenner continued. "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."

"Death?" Rick cut in. "That's what this is? A vigil?"

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

"This person died?" Andrea stepped forward, looking both interested and sad. "Who?"