Chapter 18

Julia and Carson began walking the remaining distance back to the tram station. Carson was of a medium height and build with scraggly hair that looked like it would have been just as messy before all this. Julia would have been a good bit smaller than him, but in her current state she found herself towering over him and nearly twice as wide. He had brown eyes and a wide smile and did not stop talking. He talked about what things were like before this had happened. He talked about his childhood, his schooling, how he had obtained his position as a programmer here at the installation. He began to mention his wife, a child, before he slowed down and droned off.
"We have to get to them."
"Your family is here?"
"Yes. My wife and I, we didn't want to be separated across so many miles so she works here too, also in IT. She had off today and was spending time with Matt back in 1..."
Julia could see the distress on Carson's face. His eyes were red and his face flushed, and he kneaded at his face with shaking hands.
"He's only four years old. What the hell has happened." Carson looked at her, where her face would have been.
"You're Dr. Summers aren't you? I recognize your voice." Julia kept walking.
"All of this is because of you isn't it. All the shit going on down in that hole. Don't bullshit me Summers I know."
"...we didn't mea-"
"Of course you didn't mean for it to happen. You couldn't have. But my friends are dead. Dead or worse. And that could happen to my wife and child. So what. Happened down there."
"We used the Heliogel. We caught the Dark Node; the experiment was a success. But somehow the dark node changed the Heliogel. It sent out some sort of wave of energy, the whole place started to shake and the containment tank glowed brightly and... Shrieked. There was some sort of explosion and I was knocked out. When I woke up..."
"All your friends were dead? Yeah. The feeling is familiar. And then you put on one of those suits to get out of The Hole and have worn it ever since for protection. Am I correct?"
"Yes." Julia neglected to mention her true situation, about her crushing sense of loss, how she had truly died. She was just a husk now, a program of her former self somehow running inside of a mechanical suit. Just as inhuman as the things she had been trying to survive from.
"Alright well what are we going to do about all of this?"
"First we find anybody else that's still alive. Your wife. Your kid. We don't even know if the Heliogel has spread past 1A .
"Then why has nobody come for us?" Julia had no answer.
"We have to keep looking." Julia and Carson arrived at the tram station without further incident. They didn't see any more creatures, but no more survivors either for that fact. They stepped aboard an empty tram, and were speeded off into the darkness.


- By Ashton