"He's aware of what he's done." Charlie frowned as she picked up Junior and cradled him in her arms, "I told him that he can't change the past. That he cannot undo what has been done. But, he can still atone for his actions. There's still the future. He can still make right with what could be."
Junior looked back at the vehicles following them and let out a series of worried clicks. He didn't know what they were, but he could tell them following him wasn't good.
Charlie spoke again while gently stroking Junior, "If it's of any relief to you, back when the whole incident happened, I told Birkin and the others to avoid people as much as possible. That it would be too dangerous for everyone if they ended up in any populated area. And, given I haven't heard from anybody since, I think he's heeded my words."
As they continued on, Junior kept watching the vehicles that followed. He still was wary of them, but Charlie's presence kept him calm.
"And, the whole cloning thing?" Charlie pointed out, "We needed living infected tissue to work with in order to work on an effective vaccination and/or treatment. It's important to study the effects of the virus and any potential treatment on a living specimen to ensure we don't just ship out a bunch of either ineffective or worse products. Initially, we tried just cloning infected animals. That proved to be a failure when they perished within days after cloning. So, we moved onto cloning infected humans. Mutations. Steve Burnside was the first successful clone. A teenage male who had been infected by T-Veronica. It was fortunate for us that his body had acclimated to the virus since his initial death, so he had retained his mental functions. And, well, Birkin became the second clone. I've already told about him. Prior to the incident, we were preparing to start the cloning process on Lisa Trevor. Out of all the infected we were planning on cloning, there was only one I was completely against."