070. About freedom, 8

(Uri)

A short hour maybe later on foot, we reach a posh side of the city. We enter a wide private garden for which the residence in the distance is now a group shelter.

A small community of a dozen families is living here.

They welcomed us with a mixture of surprise and expectations.

They asked as I expected for news from the rest of the world. Which we don't have.

The boy delivered his soup ingredients harvest to the kitchen.

U - So who's the biochemist who had the idea to cook this growing layer from the walls of the hospital floors?

No one really answers. Okay, that's not good.

- Please, tell us what you know?

Ah, perhaps they want us to share first. Mushio gets it and steps forward. Under the shades of the open patio, he removed his hood and smiled. He's a natural charmer.

He began telling the stories while I looked around to understand a little more.

I deduced easily that some of the families gathered here were travelling nearby when the tragedy came. Some luck eventually gathered them all here.

They sought help from the hospital and its team, but were soon left on their own. The last member of the original medical team saw that mouldy grime growing fast in the building. She had enough time to realize it was rich in nutrients and vitamins, before... Probably not leaving?

I lean toward a child to whisper.

U - I'd like to pay my respects to the dead. Can you show me the cemetery?

He nodded, and I followed them to a corner of the property's wide garden.

More graves than I expected were set there.

I pretended to pray rather honestly, thanking the kid as well.

U - Have you known all of them?

- A few. Her. She was the medic.

He tells me a story. Of how some of the survivors died here rapidly after they had arrived.

I listen. I count. I make my statistics. One man, ten women, three children, two elderly people.

I have a bad feeling about this. But I'll have to ask other people later, not just this child. I can't jump on conclusions just from this.

We return with the group innocently. My friend is just saying how we plan on continuing our investigative journey. We didn't come here to stay.

They seem to be taking it pretty well. I don't know how long their new preferred source of food will last, but we will soon be on our way. We won't impose too much.

We'll stay for as long it takes both sides to learn and share everything useful to know.

Meaning one day at best. There isn't that much to share. I think we'll be good to go just tomorrow.

~

It was nice meeting other people. Though they weren't keen to partake in our sense of humour that is like denying the end happened.

Parting ways I said we still had work to do and objectives for the month, and I received embarrassed smiles.

We bid them farewell and returned to our road, now with working Geiger counters.

I drove us through the dispersing morning mists.

M - It was reassuring in a way.

U - Although not too surprising, we had yet to find such a cluster.

Mushio checked the handheld computer he often tinkered with. It's scanning for satellites signals with the new intel he learnt from them.

It seems the world's networks aren't all dead, but their frequencies have all gone misaligned slightly.

So keeping a tool to scan for radio waves, we might still end up being lucky and catching an open connection someday.

U - What do you make of it? The deaths.

Mushio has been bugged just like me by the data and history.

M - It's hopefully a non representative sample.

U - Yeah...

It's just a matter of time before these clusters all over the world manage to reconnect with each other, and resurrect a wider political society.

By the time it happens, we will be the two physicists who figured out what really happened that day.

U - Can't let a foreign punk get our prize.

We laugh. Research can be a very competitive field. And so we go toward our next objective. The nuclear reactors along the coastline behind these mountains.

~

We eat from a bench beside the road. We can see the sea far below. With a collection of wrecked ships also noticeable.

I drink my soup. I never had the guts to say to them where all these grimes most likely grew from.

I don't think they were ready to consider that. Nor is my friend maybe? He probably thought of it on his own as well though.

U - Once we're done down there, we could follow the coast north toward the delta.

We can't see much from up here. It's too far. Hard to say if the dead zone from the past has grown milder or worse. One thing at a time.

We finish eating and other menial tasks.

My headache hurts me for another minute. I feel as if a tiny squid was wriggling inside my head. It's painful.

A hat and sunglasses help a little, but it still hurts.

Oh well... To our next conference with a sea side tour and industrial partners.

We roll downward toward the old empire's prestigious protected sites.

~