Revelations (The End 5)

USA.

Suzanne and Xander returned to the apartment. They had gone out searching for the NMap software and found it after about an hour. The rest of the team had left to their stations by six-thirty. Xander was glad he didn’t have to leave the apartment. When he was younger, he had always imagined himself as one of the superheroes he saw on the television. Now he was glad he wasn’t one of them.

He bent over and turned the CPU on. When he sat up, he waited for the monitor to come on too. Suzanne stood behind him, watching. Once the welcome page came up, she handed the disk over to him.

“Install it. Once you’re done with that, start writing the program. I sent the computer’s protocol to your device. Ensure that your program can by-pass it. I’ll be here all the while to help you,” she said.

Xander slotted the disk into the CD reader on the CPU and waited for it to load. He had always prided himself as the best programmer in his class. It was time to prove it.

???

2nd December 2021

8:54 am

Verrazzano Narrows Bridge, New York.

USA.

Stephen and Bucky jogged together in the cold. It had snowed lightly the previous night. They jogged for two reasons: to keep warm and to arrive at their destination faster. Since they had left the apartment an hour ago, they had alternated between walking and jogging, stopping to rest only when their bodies could not go any longer. Tanner jogged with them in excitement, held on a leash by Stephen. Since they had arrived in New York, his owner had not had the time to take him out on a walk. For most of the journey, they had moved in silence as both Stephen and Bucky were deep in thought. Bucky piped up.

“So, you confronted the lady, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“And what did you decide?”

“We’re on this journey now, aren’t we? I think I’ll trust her for the time being. That’s until she does something funny,” he said.

“We just have to be careful. Who knows what we’re going to see when we get to the military base? Imagine all of them are Russians. We’ll be shot dead on the spot. We won’t even get the chance to apologize for our mistake. Also, imagine if all this is just a hoax. We’ll be ridiculed,” Bucky babbled.

Stephen stopped moving, and Bucky looked back at him. Even Tanner looked up at him, wagging its tail as though wondering why they had stopped.

“Why are you stopping?” Bucky asked.

Stephen took a second to catch his breath. He wiped the sweat off his face as he said,

“This is already too scary without you being negative. And don’t you get out of breath when you talk while jogging?”

Bucky rolled his eyes.

“Bro, we have to consider these things. We need to plan.”

“Let’s do that when we get there. For now, let’s move in silence, shall we?”

“Okay. But don’t say I didn’t warn you when you’re eating bullets for lunch.”

???

2nd December 2021

8:56 am

Bell Street, Rosebank, New York.

USA.

Aaliyah and Joel knocked on the door of a small wooden building. From outside, they could already hear the noise of the ruckus inside. The door swung open, and an emo girl greeted them. She beamed at Aaliyah.