Chapter Seventeen

     Sierra looked up her old friends who restored computers. They were obsolete, but there were still people who used them. She waved her hand over a glowing grey box. An image of her friend Joshua appeared above the device. They waved at each other.

    “How’s it going?” asked Joshua.

    “Pretty good, how are you?” she asked.

    “I’m doing pretty well,” he said. “There are a few people are coming in right now. It’s that time of the year, I guess. How can I help you?”

    “I was wondering how to set up an old laptop to be online with our latest technology,” Sierra replied. “One laptop I have tested alerted the TIA.”

    “Very interesting,” he said. “It must have been on a restricted government online system. You might be on their radar right now.”

    “You’re probably right,” she said.

    The thought never crossed her mind. Sierra may be being watched right about now. Why would communicating with Uno be such a huge concern, though?

    “Are you okay?” Joshua asked. Sierra’s fears must have shown on her face. “What were you doing?”

    Sierra took a small breath, “My friend brought her grandfather’s laptop to me. She recovered it from a house that was undergoing recycling. We opened it and surprisingly it was functional. There was one app where we began chatting with Uno. That’s when the TIA was knocking on my door.”

    Joshua’s eyes narrowed, “Where did this computer come from again?”

    “My friend Diane Finch,” she said. “Eli Finch was her grandfather.”

    “The Eli Finch?” he smiled. “You never told me you knew him.”

    “Calm down,” she said. “I’ve known his granddaughter since high school.”

    “Well, Diane found something really important,” said Joshua. “If you need me to work on the computer it must be brought in by Diane. She is responsible for that machine.”

    “What’s so special?” Sierra asked.

    “Have you heard of celestial manifestation?” he asked.

    “Not really until recently,” she said. “I’m only familiar with the people we sent into space to find us all a new home.”

    “You ever wonder what happened to them?” asked Joshua. “It’s like we only sent into space and that was it.”

    “I think we got more focused on how to take care of ourselves. People were starving and were starting to die rapidly as the mission went on.”

    “Well, there were no signs of progress,” he stated. “They were just going through space and not finding habitable planets. I think they went beyond the point of no return.”

    “So, we just left them out there?” Sierra asked in shock.

   “We ran out of time and funds,” Joshua told her. “We wouldn’t have been able to save them. It was like they were injured on Mount Everest.”

   “They were not injured on Mount Everest,” she said. “They were treated like they were disposable.”

    “You two shouldn’t let this discovery just sit,” he said. “I would like to pursue this matter. Can Diane bring the laptop over here?”

    “If you can find a way to make this work without alerting the authorities,” she said. “I’ll ask Diane and see if she wants to go further.”