A lot of time has past. No one knows exactly how long it's been. But five times winter has come, and winter has gone.

Germaine and I are both happy and healthy. We did get married that spring. Though we never did have any children of our own. Little Jed was and still is more than enough for us. He is doing well, now nearly six years old. He has started to help out with the house work. So far, we have seen no side effects of his time as a zombie. As far as he knows, he is just a regular little boy. He believes Germaine and I to be his biological parents. I do not plan on ever telling him the truth.

We have gone out into the outside world on occasion. There is no reason to avoid going there. But we choose to remain in our community for the most part. A few other survivors have chosen to join us over the years. Simply finding the new world too uncanny.

On one such trip. Shortly after the apocalypse initially ended, I had gone to see Professor Choren. I had stopped at the old folks mall along the way. Waving a white flag. Informing them the zombies were cured. They opted to stay in the mall.

A few weeks after that one of them had come to our community. Saying the group had disbanded and gone their separate ways. I do not know what happened to the others.

After my visit there, I had continued on to the university. Where I was lucky enough to find Professor Choren as I had hoped I would.

Happy to see me, he explained that he travelled to the main lab, but could not generate enough power. Days he had camped out there, trying to find a solution. When suddenly the power just kicked back on. It only took a few minutes after that. The update was sent out and everything went back to normal. Mostly.

Anyone who'd been infected, which Choren wagers to be in the high nineties for percentage. Seems to have had their brains fried by the bugs.

No memories of who they once were. They all instead have taken on identities from TV and movies. Media Personalities or MPs as Choren likes to call them.

Every fourteenth night, on what we had decided is Sunday. Choren drives down to join us for dinner. Where he shares his observations with us. He speculated that the memories the bots restored. Where the ones with the strongest positive emotional connections. The ones where the person had felt they were their ideal selves. Or was interpreted to be themselves.

He'd go into detail about what exactly this meant. Saying, some simply play a stereotype character. Cowboys for example. Though many would fail to do cowboy things. They instead would drink in saloons and say "Howdy" and "I reckon" to each other all day.

Others would get stuck in very specific roles. Even so specific as to be in a loop. Reliving the same event over and over. Sometimes it would take a few hours, sometimes it takes days, or even months. But once it was over. They just started from the beginning again.

He's connected to a few others doing similar work through a network of scientists. Supposedly some of these MPs are creating full cities in which their characters fit. Word is all of Texas has become like the wild west. And all the cowboy MPs are migrating there. Choren has a map connected to each of the bugs. They show up as little red lights. And he can confirm he has seen them start to move further and disperse lately.

Another has claimed that every major city has been over run by rouge detectives that don't play by the rules.

Choren is unsure how true any of this is. He has seen the migrations but that could be attributed to anything. The theory seem to make sense. The issue is he's unsure if he is talking to real scientist like himself. Or just an MP playing the role.

Germaine has been working with him too. On occasion she'll head to the lab and help take notes, Blood samples, that sort of thing. Mostly he has her doing that at home. Testing on Jed.

The belief is, since he was infected at such a young age. He likely has not had enough media exposure to be an MP. This is just a theory though.

There's talk of showing him some old TV shows and movies. Seeing if that triggers something in his brain. That's not a test we

are willing to do.

I'm sure there are many other children out there like him. He can't have been the only baby that got infected.

Realistically, they're probably sitting in front of a TV right now. Making themselves an MP without even realizing it.