Revelations (The End 5)

When they had gone far enough, Joel spoke.

“Shaiera? Is that even a real name?”

Aaliyah laughed at that.

“You’re a crazy actress, by the way. How did you manage to come up with those stories impromptu? I’m still shocked by how you made those memos comfortable with you,” he said.

“Uh! Don’t remind me about that,” she said as she wiped her lips with the back of her palm for the umpteenth time. “I just know what they want to see me as, and I play the part. By the way, what were you doing all those times I left you alone? I saw you talking with a couple of people.”

“I was spreading our message of doom too. I figured two are better than one and can do the job faster,” he said, and she laughed. “Hey, Aaliyah, I remember speaking of your father earlier. You seemed sad afterward. How is he?”

She looked up at him and smiled ruefully.

“Can every agent in the Ray of Hope read people so well or is it just a special attribute of you and Suzanne?” she asked.

“Years of training and espionage, I guess,” He said as he shrugged.

“My family died in a car accident caused by the EMP. My grandmother died during the journey. Talking about family still hurts,” she said.

“You must hate Russians, huh?”

“Not all of them. Just the ones that did this. The family I stay with now will probably say something along the lines of ‘forgive them seventy times seven’. I wish

I could, but I don’t think I can.”

Joel looked at Aaliyah's face.

“Where you guys from America?” he asked.

“My grandparents were from Pakistan. They moved to America to have a better life. So, technically, I’m from America.”

“This whole EMP thing kinda makes you wish they stayed back, right?” he asked, and she chuckled.

“Don’t give up, Aaliyah. Life gets better,” he said.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“Some people are about to be attacked hard…”

2nd December 2021

8:28 pm

Chestnut Avenue, Rosebank, New York.

USA.

Yes! I’ve succeeded,” Xander shouted as he jumped up from his seat in excitement. Suzanne, who had been sleeping, jerked up.

“What’s going on? Who’s attacking?” she asked, standing up and becoming alert.

Xander looked at her and laughed.

“No one. But some people are about to be attacked hard. I bypassed it. Come and see,” he said as he went back to the seat. Suzanne followed him and watched. As he typed, he spoke.

“So, I’m going to put the protocol on this makeshift site, blocking any outgoing information without my fingerprint authentication. Now, I’m going to try and send information to your mini tab’s recipient’s address. Look, it didn’t work. The protocol insists that I authenticate with my fingerprint, and we don’t have a fingerprint scanner, right? Check this: after installing my program, I run it and input the site’s URL. Then, I attach the same information and wait.”

A minute later, Suzanne’s mini tablet beeped. She opened it and saw the message.