Eden At last

The Hard Drive

He stood up rapidly and paced to the rest of the crew, who were chuckling and cheering upon their recent feats to the surface. Alfred stood for a bit gazing wildly, over their bright faces and then he said, “We have to locate the headquarters, and we mustn’t delay”. The faces which were cheering a minute ago, were now exchanging confused looks. They looked so dull and placid that Milo became extremely certain to smack them in their faces one by one. After all they weren’t in a picnic, were they? However Milo resisted his instincts and burst out at them, “Do we have a picnic here. FOLKS? A man just died in front of our eyes and you all enjoying the sun, aren’t you?”. They were really struck by his words; he barely manages to burst out. “Will sobering bring him alive? I bet no. And there is a pop quiz coming for you: who made Alfred the leader”, shouted Mazey, at a point that she coughed and had to gulp some water down. Although her shrilly tone would irritate every one (and so it did), Alfred didn’t utter a word. He was looking plainly numb as if the words simply didn’t pierce his body. In the very silence that followed one could hear the rattling sound of the wind blowing against the leaves. They all were staring blankly at each other for minutes, and weren’t slightly bored or tired. Perhaps the cold wind and fresh aura in it pleased them. “Sorry”, Mazey whispered “I am a bit out of mood, I think”.

                                                                                                 In all this time Alfred was so soaked in grief, that he had ignored the most tempting sunlight of the surface. The sun shone brightly, a mellow scent of oak and cedar trickled under their noses. New leaves had emerged from the tiny buds that were barely visible in those colossal trunks. Definitely, a setting like that would indicate a pleasing world. However, the pleasing setting they found themselves around was merely a small part of the big reality, a harsh truth. The rest of the world as engulfed by toxic mushroom clouds caused by Nuke bombardment. Buildings were ravaged, people hunted down; not a pleasing setting after all. But then, one’s strength lies in one’s hopes. And that’s what they all had… a desperate hope. As per the extracted locations from the computer, the headquarters were located three blocks away, in the south. Shadows grew shorter, the sun was over their head. In a matter of hours the darkness would fall in and would give rise to some peculiar uncertainties that won’t be appreciable for them. Finally they managed to comprehend the odds against them and were convinced that they should act fast. They walked through the shattered remains of what was previously a city, Myas. The houses were merely existing, all laid to the ground. And the other buildings were vanished… simply gone. The road was patched with moss growing from the deep cracks. Jamie had a map of the city that he had acquired previously from a common store. The map meant a lot help to them, pointing out a lot of shortcuts to their destination. They avoided the main streets and often hopped in some quick cuts between the streets. But what difference did it make since both the paths were either ways were empty of traffic or any human distraction. The path to the head quarters wasn’t much of a boring experience, rather a thrill for some to discover the earth as if it were unknown. Clearly, staying out of fresh air and sunlight for almost half a year and then suddenly popping a head into the surface was quite a thrill. The sun felt different and the air was pleasant; the more they kept hanging around the place the more nostalgia they gathered. No movement was noticed in the streets, yet they remained extremely cautious and clever as not to draw any sort of trouble.

For this short time, every one even Mazey had versioned Alfred as the leader, though only leading them forth but not subjecting them. The sun was welcoming their guests in a sort of unusual way, producing the extremes of heat. Their already dust smothered faces were then complaining of indispensable sweat. As they proceeded towards the south of Myas, the clouds thickened and to their further relief, the weather dampened. The sun looked pretty covered up by the most formidable of the clouds. The enigma in their mood dampened and soon extinguished. When they uncovered the headquarters, there wasn't much of a building left. But some sort of a pile of debris, just like their bunker. Before they reached the headquarters, there was sort of a picture of a dome shaped architecture that was carved into their memory. But, apparently, the last thing piling over the debris was a dome.

“What do you think?... why would they blow up their own place”, asked Milo.”Probably, because they have discovered our knowledge”, added Milo answering his own concern.”Well a precaution may be”, urged Jamie in support.”Whatever it might be; my only concern is the safe retrieval of the data, the only assurance of our survival” , sighed Alfred. “you mean the data can be wiped out”, asked Toni.”Maybe”, reassured Alfred. The chance of the data to be found was absurdly low, but it was worth a hunt. The hunt began; they all had to look for any computer gadget capable of storing data, like a flash drive. The site was flatly laid in the ground with no concrete elevation although many objects were perished under it. After an hour of running here and there and a variety of hardship, Gill found something resembling to the description of a hard drive. The article was a hard drive by appearance and the rubber case was worn out exposing the circuit boards. “The circuits aren’t damaged, so there is a possibility we can trace any bit of information, they left for us”, said Mazey carefully inspecting the drive. She then pulled a cable with hubs on both sides, and connected the hub with her palmtop. The crowd was hovering over Mazey’s palmtop while she started to search the information in the hard drive.