Buying My Way Through the Multiverse

While JARVIS ran his automated train diagnostics, Gray kept himself busy. He used most of his free time to sweep the skies and aggressively vaporize any walker herds he spotted below. After two days of keeping tabs on the Commonwealth, something suddenly clicked in his memory, he had completely forgotten about Eugene, Abraham, and Rosita.

Gray launched himself into the air and flew at extreme speeds down toward Texas. Just like he did with Negan, he opened his system shop, spent a tiny fraction of Gold on a magical compass, and tuned it to track the exact location of Abraham Ford. The needle spun instantly and locked ahead of him.

Gray cruised through the clouds while monitoring his maxed-out world map. After flying for about 20 minutes, his radar flagged a small convoy of vehicles moving steadily north. He felt a bit confused at first, he remembered that in the show, Rosita had been furious about all the people who sacrificed their lives just to help get Eugene to Washington, D.C. It looked like at this early point in the timeline, their traveling group was actually much bigger.

Gray counted exactly eight living human dots in their little caravan. They had barely passed the Mississippi line and were actively driving through Alabama along Interstate 65. Gray mapped out their trajectory and realized that if they kept driving along this exact route, they would eventually pass right by Atlanta. He genuinely wondered what the hell took them so long to reach Georgia in the original TV show timeline, since Glenn didn’t even run into Abraham’s group until more than a year into the apocalypse. He decided to just ignore the timeline plot hole for now.

Wanting to set up a clean encounter, Gray used his newly mastered Clothes Beam ability from Kami to instantly swap his heavy blackened armor for a set of regular old-world clothes. Next, he formed a hand sign and created a shadow clone.

”Go down to the interstate ahead of their path, wait for the convoy, and make first contact,” Gray ordered.

The clone nodded and flew down toward the highway. Gray then used his Jumper ability to teleport back to his house at the Atlanta prison. He walked out to his garage, completely filled the Earthroamer SX truck with diesel fuel, and put the stocked vehicle into his shared inventory. Not even a minute later, the Earthroamer vanished from his inventory slots, meaning the highway clone down in Alabama had successfully pulled it out to the side of the road.

Happy with how smooth the plan was running, Gray activated his Jumper ability again and teleported straight back into the air high above the Commonwealth to check on Pamela Milton.

It looked like the Governor had taken his nighttime warnings completely to heart. She was actively purging the corrupt officials from her administration, making a massive public spectacle out of it. She outed their crimes and illegal activities directly in front of the entire population so none of the wealthy elites would have a single chance to avoid their punishments.

Gray watched from the shadows, thoroughly content with the political cleanup. However, as he scanned the courtyard, his eyes narrowed. Pamela was taking absolutely no action whatsoever against her spoiled son, Sebastian. The guy was still roaming around the upper-class districts completely free, only this time, he had a much larger squad of armored guards escorting him everywhere he went.

If Pamela honestly believed that adding a few more guards in funny-looking armor was going to stop him from enforcing justice, she was gravely mistaken.

A few states south, down on the interstate in Alabama, the shadow clone was waiting.

Abraham kept driving down the highway, his eyes peeled for any suspicious activity. He knew they could get ambushed at any moment, so he constantly scanned the sides of the road, trying to spot anything out of place. The moment he spotted a lonesome survivor stepping out of a massive, luxury camper truck and actually waving at them, the alarms inside his mind rang hard.

Abraham brought his vehicle to a halt on the side of the interstate. Seeing the lead truck stop, Rosita quickly pulled the second vehicle over right behind them. Abraham climbed out of the cab with his rifle firmly in hand, closing the distance toward Gray’s clone.

The clone didn’t mind the rifle being pointed directly at his chest. He simply played along with the situation, raising his hands casually. ”Whoa, I know the world went to shit and all, but this kind of greeting seems kinda out of place, don’t you think?”

”Once I know you pose no threat, I’ll give you a normal greeting. How’s that?” Abraham said, stopping a few feet away from the massive Earthroamer.

”Fair enough,” the clone replied simply.

”Is it only you? Or do you have more people hidden out here with you?” Abraham asked, his eyes darting to the tree line.

By this point, Rosita had also stepped down from her vehicle. She held her gun ready, aggressively scanning the deep woods to see if she could spot any hidden ambushers or secondary threats.

”Nope, just the lonesome me,” the clone replied, keeping his hands raised in the air.

”You won’t mind if we search you or your vehicle, would you?” Abraham asked, narrowing his eyes as he started getting closer to him.

The clone shook his head with a light shrug. ”Go ahead. Just try not to track any mud into it.”

Abraham climbed up the steps and went inside the Earthroamer SX. He methodically checked all the storage cabinets, looked under the bed, and even peeked inside the full bathroom. Seeing the entire high-tech living space free of hidden threats, he finally let out a breath of relief and climbed back down to the pavement.

”A bit too luxurious, don’t you think?” Abraham remarked, gesturing to the heavy overland truck. ”Ain’t you afraid of getting robbed out here?”

”Not really,” the clone replied. ”I can defend myself. Besides, I’m on a mission anyway.”

Abraham took a long, hard look at Gray. The kid was a bit short, but seeing the way he carried himself and the perfect, fluid grace of his posture told Abraham’s military brain that this guy was not normal at all. He had also noticed a few high-grade guns resting inside the truck cabin.

”What kind of mission?” Abraham asked. He glanced back toward his own vehicle, where Eugene was sitting quietly in the passenger seat. ”We’re also on a mission. Probably the most important mission of them all.”

”Well, my mission is more down-to-earth,” the clone said, turning around and walking right back inside the truck despite having their weapons still pointed at his back. He opened the refrigerator, pulled out a frosty, cold can of Coke, and cracked it open, taking a slow sip right in front of them. ”My group sent me out to look for more survivors.”

Seeing his completely nonchalant, fearless attitude, Abraham lowered his rifle an inch. ”And where exactly is this group of yours located?”

Abraham kept eyeing the luxurious vehicle, the fresh supplies this kid clearly had access to, and the effortless way he moved. He desperately wanted to know more about this group. If they truly had these kinds of resources, maybe they could help them get Eugene to Washington, D.C., a hell of a lot faster.

Gray’s clone offered a small smile and took another sip of his Coke. ”I can show you the place right now, if you want.”

Abraham raised an eyebrow, keeping his rifle steady. ”How exactly are you going to do that?”

”I just need to grab something from the back,” the clone said, pointing toward the bed where a few of his firearms were lying out in the open.

Abraham nodded slowly, his eyes tracking Gray’s movements. ”Do it carefully, kid. Don’t do anything stupid.”

The clone walked over to the bed, completely ignoring the weapons, and simply grabbed the laptop. He flipped the screen open, pulled up the updated video files, and handed the laptop over to Abraham.

”We have enough supplies for way more people than we currently have,” the clone explained as Abraham stared at the screen. ”That’s exactly why my group sent me out here to look for more survivors. We have the space, the food, and the security.”

Abraham stared at the high-definition footage of the towering 10-story stone apartment complexes, the flowing hot water, the massive agricultural fields, and the heavily armed guards holding the line. His jaw dropped slightly. He turned around and passed the laptop to Rosita and the other survivors in the convoy so they could see it too. Within a minute, a small crowd of the traveling survivors gathered around the screen, their eyes wide with absolute shock.

Abraham turned his attention back to Gray, trying to keep his military composure. ”That’s a hell of a sales pitch, kid. But that still doesn’t answer my question. Where exactly is this place?”

”Oh, it’s not that far away from here, actually,” the clone replied casually, leaning against the truck. ”It’s just a few miles south of Atlanta, Georgia.”

Abraham blinked, looking back toward Interstate 65. They were already heading in that general direction anyway. ”Look, if you guys want, I can show you the way,” the clone continued, gesturing to the open road ahead of them. ”You can follow my truck down the interstate, check the entire place out for yourselves, and give us a final answer once you’re safely behind the walls.”

Abraham shook his head firmly, his military posture tightening. ”Look, kid, I would love to check out this paradise of yours, but we have a hard deadline. We need to get to D.C. as soon as humanly possible.”

The clone tilted his head, taking another calm sip of his Coke. ”Why the rush? It’s not like the world is going anywhere anytime soon.”

Abraham thought about it for a minute. He glanced back at his convoy, weighing his options, before finally deciding to trust this heavily supplied stranger. ”We have a scientist with us,” Abraham said, lowering his voice significantly. ”He knows the cure for the dead coming back. He knows what caused it, and he needs to get to the capital to fix the world.”

”Really?” The clone asked, putting on a perfectly surprised expression.

In reality, Gray knew exactly that Eugene was full of shit and lying through his teeth. But he immediately seized on this information to reel them in.

”That’s great!” the clone continued enthusiastically. ”You’re in luck, then. We actually have a lot of top-tier doctors at our base who used to work at the CDC, and they’ve also been working around the clock on a cure. In fact, you can see our state-of-the-art biological labs in one of those video files on the laptop.”

The clone looked directly at Abraham. ”Look, if you guys are willing to trade, think about it this way... if you can help our settlement get the cure, or let your guy collaborate with our team, we can provide your convoy with absolutely anything you would need to make your journey easier. Weapons, ammo, fuel, fresh food, you name it. How about it?”

Abraham stood completely shocked. This group was turning out to be anything but normal. They had walls, food, fuel, electricity, water, and now he just heard they had a fully functional lab with actual CDC scientists working on a cure. If their facilities were exactly what Eugene needed to execute his classified data, then they wouldn’t even need to make the incredibly dangerous trip all the way to Washington, D.C. They could just do it right there in Georgia.

”Let me talk it out with my people, and I’ll let you know what we decide,” Abraham said, his tone much calmer now. He turned on his heel to walk back to the convoy to consult with Eugene and Rosita.

”Take your time,” the clone called out, leaning back against the truck frame while he continued sipping his cold drink.

He watched Abraham walk away, a quiet smirk forming on his face. Gray knew getting them to the prison was the best way to save the whole convoy from future heartbreak, exposure to raiders, and the inevitable moment Eugene’s lie fell apart in the middle of nowhere.