The quiet was the hardest part.
Not the silence of the dead valley, but the quiet that settled over the warehouse and the wider ruins in the weeks that followed the transmission of the null-field. It was the quiet of a storm having passed, leaving behind shattered trees and the eerie, uncertain calm. The sky did not lash out again. The Nexus offered no further response. The only change was the gradual, almost imperceptible lessening of the Zombie Virus's frenetic activity in the regions closest to the broadcast's epicenter. Mutants still prowled, but their movements were slower, less purposelessly aggressive. It was as if a constant, screaming pain in the world's mind had been dialed down to a dull ache.
For Julian's team, the shift was psychological whiplash. They had spent so long in a state of frantic preparation for an apocalyptic confrontation that the sudden absence of an immediate deadline left them unmoored.
