From the Personal Diary of Simon Quarry: April 22, 2008

I don't know what to believe any more.

Instead of going to Tracer's funeral, I was ordered to head to Centralia, Pennsylvania back on the 12th.

I can't say too much about what happened there, under the burning ground, but it made very clear that the changes that I thought were taking place aren't just in my head.

Well, they kind of are... and in my chest... and in my gut.

I haven't eaten anything in three weeks. At first I thought it was just nerves and being busy with the new tests they've been giving me here on base. But then I realized how long it had been and that I wasn't even hungry. I'm not sure what that means, but it's probably connected to the other stuff.

I have trouble feeling anything any more. The base docs say that it's not just my skin that's turning hard, but that everything inside of me is hardening. That's going to make me a whole lot more difficult to hurt, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. But it makes it hard to feel things, too.

The other day I accidentally took out the corner of the PX as I stepped around some recruit who wasn't paying attention. I didn't even realize I had hit the first wall, let alone walked through the second one until I saw the dust and heard the other people scream. I even had to move to new quarters--ones built from some new type of metal--because I kept ripping the door off it's hinges at the old place.

Well, that and I couldn't fit down the hallway any more.

I'm bigger now than I was before. And I look different. Less human.

That has me thinking again about Bhutan and Tracers death and what Jeremiah said. We have the powers of mythical gods, but we are so clearly still men, still not anything at all like God. We hate and kill. God would never do that. At least not the God I grew up with. At least not with good reason.

And then there's all the other questions about Utopia that I have. If what Jeremiah said is even close to true, they've definitely been up to something and they've been planning it a long time--from even before the shuttle explosion.

I don't know... I just don't know.

Maybe the general will have some answers. He wants me in his office first thing Wednesday.