A Year or Two?

"Is this what she meant would last a year?" Shea finally woke up and asked. She turned to Carter as if wanting an explanation but he only shrugged at her. How was he to know the thoughts of a rich girl? Perhaps she was planning for more than just the four of them?

"Let's stay here for a while" Carter decided. Shea glanced at him but she didn't say anything, sometimes she deferred to him to make the decisions.

The three of them walked out and looked around before their eyes landed on the open door. Ruth's dog Desmond had broken it into small shrapnel leaving a gaping hole in the house's otherwise stellar defense.

"She probably left the door because of the dog" Carter shook his head.

"I think she just never had the time to get to it," Shea said.

Carter considered for a moment and nodded his head agreeing with her, her argument was more sound than his.

"What do we do?" Kori asked tilting her head to look up at Shea whose hand she was holding firmly. Perhaps because they were both female, she was more reliant on Shea.

"We sleep, we'll fix it tomorrow" Carter was unwilling to do anything else this night. The whole experience was too much of a rollercoaster. Just a few hours ago he was worried about paying the rent for the shop and the loan. Then he learned about the changing world and before he could even process what he was learning about, Kori was bitten by a gecko and after that, he couldn't even relate it if someone asked. They watched social order crumble right before their very eyes.

"Open your eyes and look outside, it's already sunrise" Shea gave Carter a disdainful glance.

Indeed, the dark was slowly getting brighter evidence of the slowly rising sun. Carter got on the floor and proceeded to ignore the girls, he found a corner of the room to prop his back against the wall. Without saying anything to them, he closed his eyes and in only a few minutes fell asleep.

Shea felt helpless but she understood, no one knew what the day would bring. She took Kori to meet him and set her down to sleep. But she stayed awake to watch just in case something happened while they were all sleeping.

Fortunately, the night passed peacefully and Carter was the first to wake up. The first thing he saw was Shea looking at him grievously. Understanding why, an embarrassed smile appeared on his face.

"Rest first, I'll try to fix the door," he said to her and hurried away without saying anything else. Shea was not in the mood to engage in any squabbling, her eyes were bloodshot from the stress of staying up all night after a harsh day at work yesterday. Seeing that Carter was awake now, she quickly lay down to sleep and her eyes closed before her head met the floor.

Carter traced his steps back to the basement and looked around. The first thing he noticed was the massive glass wall in from of him behind which housed many many resources. By the left corner were a few bags of dry food, bags of rice being the most among them, some raw brown beans and other cereal he couldn't recognize. The only thing he knew how to make was fast or light food, as for these dry foods in large bags. He had no idea what the majority of them were. Fortunately, Shea was a chef. . . well that was her hobby, she worked in a lab, Carter never really paid any attention to what she did there, all he knew was that it was research.

The number of bags still made his lips twitch even though this was the second time he was seeing it. He noticed another door which they hadn't gone into earlier but when he reached it, he noticed a keypad. . . password.

Just as he was about to quit, he heard a voice come from it.

"Who is that? Carter is that you?"

"Ruth!" Carter exclaimed, immediately recognizing the voice.

"Oh my God Carter" Ruth's voice broke into a mess of sobs and squealing.

"Ruth? What's going on? Are you okay?"

In a small clean room somewhere a young girl sat on a single-person bed, her phone in hand as she spoke into it. Tears dropped from her eyes as she tried to suppress her sobs with her left hand. Hearing Carter's questions she didn't know where to start. If she had to guess? Carter was still largely unaware of how different the world had become. Ruth had no idea how right she was. He was still worried about the police coming for the cab they stole.

As if remembering something she hurriedly cleaned her eyes.

"Carter? I can't talk long. Listen, don't go out of the house if you can help it. It's too late to leave BM city. I'm okay, don't worry about me. My parents brought me to Mount Gill" She said a lot of things at once trying to save time.

Fortunately, Carter was able to pay attention to her despite the rush and he took in every word she said.

"How's Coco?" Ruth asked.

Coco was the nickname she used for Kori.

"She's fine, Shea is fine too by the way" Carter smiled. There was a cold war going on between Ruth and Shea and Carter had no idea what started it.

"What happened with Desmond? Mom wouldn't let me take him, he wasn't acting like the other animals" Ruth seemed worried about her dog. Carter's mind moved very quickly.

If he told her the dog attacked them, she would be aggrieved for it, and she'd probably be upset that they chased Desmond away.

"We didn't see him when we came but the door was broken down. I saw your letter but we can't live here without a door, I'm looking around to see if there's something I can use to fix it"

"Oh. . . umm. I didn't get the chance to fix the door. There's a reinforced steel door in this room, I'll give you the password. Hey Carter? If Desmond returns. . . it's okay if you have to kill him but don't open the door for him no matter what"

Carter was surprised by Ruth's last statement. In the letter she had asked him not to kill the dog, why would she change her mind now?

Carter was simply unaware of the things Ruth had seen. Things were getting worse fast, she was grateful for his ignorance but at the same time, she worried about him very much.

Carter didn't get the chance to say anything else when Ruth started saying the password. He quickly inputted it into the keypad and at the last letter, the door made a releasing sound.

"Stay alive Carter, promise me," Ruth said.

"I promise" Carter quickly replied but the call or whatever it was seemed to have already disconnected because there were no more words from Ruth. Sighing he opened the door and entered the small room only to find metal bars, steel gauze, steel plates, and some other metals lying around everywhere. There was a table in the middle of the room and on it lay a big metal door. He noticed a shelf and toolbox on the ground but despite being male, he had no interest in gadgets, be it tinkering with one or making one.

Instead, he walked to the door and tried to lift it but it wouldn't budge not even by the slightest bit.

"Kori" he sighed as he relented his efforts. Yes, only Kori would be able to lift this.

Leaving the door open he walked out of the room and walked to a locker, he had seen a marker in there before when he looked around. His eyes roamed about the large glass wall and meat strips in it for a bit. Walking towards it he reached out a hand to feel the wall and as soon as he touched it a loud voice resounded in the room.

"Registering user. Palm print recognized. Hello Carter, I am Viv, an AI made by the National Research Institute to guide underaged kids living without Adult supervision."

Carter was stunned for a moment but immediately collected himself. Ruth had told him about this AI before but the only striking thing about it was how lacking it was. Yes, the AI wasn't very smart, unfortunately.

"Viv do you know how to open this door?" he asked directly.

"No, the door of the cold room was not designed to be opened. You can instead select an item and it will be delivered to you through the vent"

"The vent?" Carter asked horrified.

"It's a small box located at the far end by your right" Viv replied promptly.

He walked towards the right and noticed a small white box with vertical slits on the surface, he understood now why it was called a vent.

Opening it he found the box empty and realized he hadn't selected anything yet.

"I want a chocolate bar," he said out loud to Viv.

"Please close the door to prevent loss of temperature" the AI promptly replied.

Though confused he obliged and closed the door. As soon as he did, he noticed those vertical slits darken indicating they had been covered from inside. There was a low hum and then the sound of something dropping. Without waiting for the prompt, he opened the door, and within he found what he'd asked for. A Mars chocolate bar. Although he didn't like Mars, he simply took it without saying anything in protest, they had free food after all.

"Thanks, Viv"

"No problem Carter" Viv replied.

Carter suddenly had a thought. Viv seemed intelligent enough. It seemed that Ruth was so bored that she tried to have a conversation with the AI. After all, she was always home alone. It made sense then why she would find the adequately working AI unintelligent.

Chomping on the chocolate bar, he took the marker and wrote the password beside the keypad so the others could get into the small room. Picking up a simple steel plate from within, he carried it out with him to the front door and blocked the door with it.

Kori woke up at that moment and looked at him weirdly.

"Shhh" he signaled at her so she wouldn't wake the sleeping Shea.

"But is morning already" Kori immediately protested. At home, Carter would always make her whisper because their house had no noise isolation. At night when it was quiet, everything said indoors could be heard from the streets.

"Shea is sleeping silly" Carter rolled his eyes at her and he whispered.

"No, she's not. I saw her go outside" Kori stared at Carter in confusion.

Only now did Carter turn to where Shea was and found it empty. He hurriedly moved aside the steel plate and ran out the door to find Shea simply standing there without moving.

"Shea?" he called anxiously as he ran to her.

"Jesus Carter, quiet" He heard Shea's voice and immediately relaxed. Fortunately, she was okay.

But in the next moment, he jumped backward, pulling Kori who had come out with him.

"What's wrong little brother?" he could hear Shea's mockery. Only no did he relax, whatever happened couldn't be that bad if she was still in the mood for sibling rivalry.

"What happened?" he asked curiously but with some caution in his voice.

Shea finally turned around, her expression disdainful.

"Just a voice in your head is enough to scare you so badly huh?"

"You caught one of those floating light things?" he asked. Kori had explained it to him when they were in the car last night.