Hell's Glitch (initial draft)

23 Guilt

Alex stumbled over her own two feet, nearly falling down completely as a string of thoughts ran though her head.

I hate these hallways! I hate this place! I have to get out of here!

She felt as if she was running forever in her search for the bathroom. The armed guards turned their heads to track her movements. She couldn't see their faces because they wore military helmets with visors. Their shirts and armored vests were green and white and their pants black, like the other guards in the office. They looked like cold military robots in their gear and it made her sickness even worse thinking how quickly they had come and 'secured' the place. The men were posted at various points throughout the hall. She ran past a few of them to get to the bathroom. Once in the stall, she wasted no time in heaving herself over and throwing up into the bowl. Tears streamed from her eyes, but she wasn't sure if it was caused by the violent sickness that upturned her stomach or from the heaviness now weighing on her heart. Her words barely came out a whisper through shuddering gasps.

"There's no way! There's just no way! This can't be real! He can't be serious!"

She let her tears fall into the bowl and heaved up more bile from her stomach. The muscles in her stomach and throat burned from the rapid and extreme constrictions. Her face was hot and sore from the constant scrunching she forced upon it every time she broke down. Her words were nothing, but foolish hope and she needed to stop clinging to them and get back to reality. She had a responsibility to help the others.

"I just can't, I just can't..."

Her shaking hadn't stopped since earlier, since she witnessed what happened to Randy. She tried to force the shaking to stop by grabbing her arm, but it did nothing. She could no more do that than she could stop thinking about Randy's bloody body. It hadn't helped that she hadn't slept in over fifteen hours. The test was now well into the next morning and she would need to sleep soon, but how could she after everything that had happened in the last few hours. She remained hunched over the toilet for a few more minutes until an abrupt knock came at the door followed by a digitized voice.

"You have one minute left." said the deeply disguised voice. She took a deep breath and moved to the sink once she heard the footsteps move away from the door. There was no way that she was stupid enough to trust armed men that wore masks and disguised their faces and voices.

She ran her hands under the cold water and wiped around her mouth with a wet paper towel. She then looked at the puffy red face in the mirror and it made her cry all over again. The tears almost blinded her vision, leaving her only able to see herself as a blurry water color painting with a dark blob of hair covering the dull brown splotches of her face and a large red blob that was her shirt. She wiped the tears from her eyes and tried her best to dry her face with her hands. Her thoughts were beyond her control now. They took her back to the conversation she had earlier that day. Back before everything with this project had changed.

Hours ago

Alex left her cubicle and made her way over to Milner to ask him a question.

"Mr. Milner, what's going on with all this security?" she asked.

He turned at her interruption and fixed his dark pupils on her. He seemed reluctant to answer. She couldn't tell if he was annoyed or what.

"Why are you away from your console, Ms. Madura?"

"I always have my display linked up to my techband."

She held up the oversized digital wristband and swiped something across the touchscreen to bring up an aqua blue hologram of Sam doing battle with another tester named CrushKills then quickly swiped the image away.