Sixty-Four Gig

Clutching the heart pendant in her hands that her admirer gave her days before, she closed her eyes and let her mind wander as she sat in the back of the truck with nine others and three more in the cab. Each bump of the road felt like it would send them flying from the truck bed. But they couldn't slow down, time was running out. They had to hurry.

Where did it originate? Truthfully, no one still alive has the answer to that. It started with a doctor in Canada raising the alarm. A super virus, more lethal and contagious than any predecessor before it. Having a kill rate of one-hundred percent of those infected. It was not a quick death either. It stayed in the body multiplying before showing symptoms of the sickness, before it went on attacking the cerebral cortex, causing its host to act chaotically to increase its chance to spread.

First the internet and cell towers went down as workers either died or no longer showed up to work in an attempt to avoid catching the virus. A few military outposts transmitted information via an official radio frequency. They kept us updated on contamination zones as well as updates on a vaccination effort.

Cities were the first to go dark, densely populated areas helped the virus spread quickly, nearby towns and villages were next as the city folk fled and carried the virus with them. Small villages and rural communities seemed to be the safest, but there was always someone from an infected cluster who snuck in hoping to avoid the virus, unknown to them, they were a carrier for the next cluster spread.

Human nature had a funny way of ensuring total contamination, whether it were those who believed their immune systems would protect them and continued on normally, religious folk who gathered in groups to pray for salvation, or the ones who believed the government would protect them as they were rounded up into quarantine camps and awaited on a vaccine that would never come.

There were no plans in place to protect anyone, the fear caused irrationality to spread and the blame to shift from race, to political, and even to the point of blaming next door neighbours for even going outside for food. The record breaking summer heat waves did nothing to pacify anyone.

The truck came to a sudden stop as the driver slammed on the breaks, nearly slamming everyone in the bed against the back of the truck cap. Opening up her eyes, she could see the Debert bunker from there. They had cement blocks set up against the main road in to prevent any vehicles in. They'd have to make a run to it from here, about a kilometer down the poorly upkept road. Guarded by some local militia and military reserves. They knew we were coming because the man knew some who worked at the bunker and when things were going south in the towns, they invited our group in. We did well avoiding the virus so far, but the problem was we weren't the only ones tuned into their frequency. So it was time to run...

People were desperate, whether they were more concerned about saving themselves or a loved one. People acted irrationally to reach perceived safety, even if it was already too late for them. It's why the few safe places remaining had to use force to defend their positions.

Halfway down the road, other vehicles began arriving at the road entrance. People jumping out to run toward the bunker and the guards began to open fire. The first few fell, creating more time to reach the bunker. As we passed the guards, they joined our run towards the doors. Once everyone is inside, it'd be time to shut the doors for three months, long enough for the virus to run its course and emerge back into the world, resetting the virus spread to zero.

The bunker itself could house about three-hundred and fifty people for a little over three months. But we had a lot less to house, and could last nine months if the virus did not run its course in the first three.

Everyone reached the bunker with not much time to spare as the people in their mad rush for perceived safety were only a quarter-kilometer out. The first door was a simple wooden entrance into the facility. Which led down a hallway with multiple turns, ending in a double door reinforced containment area to keep anything out. In our rush, I tripped over my own feet, smashing my knee into the concrete. The man helped me up and carried me the rest of the way to the door.

"We made it!" exclaimed one of the girls from our group. "We're finally safe!"

A sense of relief washed over the entire group as the guards began locking the doors. But the silence was broken by the man's question while pointing to my neck. "The pendant, do you still have it?" He asked, a look of anxiety washed over his face.

Touching my neck, feeling the pendant gone, I replied, "I must have dropped it when I fell in the hallway."

"Shit, open the door. Don't wait for me if they breach the hallway." He stated in an almost resolved voice. The guards opened the door for him before I could even protest. Seeing him swiftly disappear around the hallway corner. Moments later, we could hear the splintering of the wooden door as the group outside breached it.

The guards waited for a moment, keeping a sharp eye on the corner. The man was the first around the corner, shouting, "Close the door!" Before throwing the pendant past the doors. The guards shut the inner contamination door as the man reached the first door and closed it behind himself. Not long after, the group from outside rounded the hallway corner and stood outside of the first door, some tried beating on it, others looked for alternative ways inside. But it was too well reinforced and after a couple of hours, the group left to look for other areas of survival, not before exchanging a few words of disgust for the ones behind the doors though.

With a sigh of relief, I reached for the button to open the door, however one of the guards stopped me in my tracks. Before I could open my mouth to argue with the guard, the man looked at me through the glass and put on his smile that he would usually put on to comfort others. "Sorry, but they're right. I came into close contact with some from that group. It's best this door remains closed until we know if I've caught the virus or not." With a grumble, I nod as I plant my hand against the glass and he presses his hand back on the other side. "Worry not, we'll know in less than twenty-four hours and then I can hold you again."

Sleep did not come easily, in the middle of the night, I awoke and returned to the containment doors. "Still awake?" I ask as I peer through the glass.

"Yeah, couldn't get any sleep either." When he stood up and looked back through the glass however, I could see his eyes turning dark red, one of the first obvious signs of infection. He notices my startle and smiles, continuing. "Figured I got too close to them. It's okay though. Remember our plans to see the world?"

"Yeah..." I reply, my voice trembling.

"Guess we'll have to put that on hold for a little longer." He worked up a laugh as he said it with a calm tone. Like a joke without a punchline.

Standing there with tears filling my eyes, but before I could burst out crying, he was quick to begin talking again and smiling. "Hey, you're safe, and that's all I care about. That pendant I gave you..." But before he could finish the sentence, he was on the ground, his body spasming unable to hold off the virus as it racked through his muscles. There was no holding back the tears when his body became still.

Sobbing until the morning, I look over toward the pendant on the ground, and almost began crying again as I seen a piece of it across the ground, thinking it was broken and his life was gone for a simple accessory. Upon picking it up however, I noticed it wasn't broken, but opened up.

It was a USB flash drive inside the pendant. Wiping away my tears, I take it to the group. One of the ones working from the base helps load it up to a localized computer. On the drive is a locked folder titled 'Project Atlas'.

It was obvious by the look on the worker's face that they knew what it was. "What's Project Atlas?" I ask, before they offered up their seat and told me to input the password. It took me a moment to calm down and say "I don't know the password."

"You must," replied the worker. "It must be something he knew you could guess."

Typing in my guess into the field, I press enter and the folder opens up. Inside were more folders but they were unlocked. Each one dealing with a how-to in different subject areas.

"From the look of your face, you didn't know what this was. Let me explain. Project Atlas was an idea by him to create a copy of thousands of areas of interest into a compact sixty-four gigabyte drive. Basic text files with a few pictures to guide someone in recreating useful technology in survival as well as other files dealing with how a small community could be self sustaining and run smoothly in an event where access to the internet were to go down and millions of files being lost forever. Also look, here's a file directed to you."

Opening up the file was a few videos. Tears filled my eyes again as I read one titled 'When I'm Gone'. He knew there was a possibility of him not being here long before this virus even began. There was also a sub-folder of mp3 files of the music playlists he would create for me to express different moods through music.

"What was the password anyway?" Asked the worker.

Thinking, before speaking, I reply, "It's a nickname I was given by my closest friends... 'Missy'."