Leaving Town J for Town K

They all passed the Time Machine experiment cave and continued walking further into the tunnel that led to the launching pad.

As had been decided earlier, they were protected by the Orbs and now there were 125 of them. That is actually a lot of Orbs. When they hovered around everyone's heads they resembled a pearl necklace with huge light-emitting beads. It was a beautiful sight to behold.

After walking for about 10 minutes they were back at the launching pad. The 3 attendants were still there frozen as statues and in various poses or stages of doing work at their respective areas.

The launching pad had an arrival area where the cars were coming from Town I and K. They also had the departure area for cars leaving for Town I and K. They were going to use the launch pad to take them to the next Town K. It was already 12 noon and they had another 20 minutes to travel to reach their next Town.

Mono explained to them that the direct link to Town M was only with Town I. The other towns were inter-connected via a hopping system of connectivity. They could not go directly to Town M, they all had to travel to Town I first even if they belonged to Town L. Town L no longer exists as a Town. It was abandoned and the reason for so doing was not known to the society here. It is still a mystery and no one lives there. Even they could not go to Town M but had to travel from Town L to Town K then from Town K to Town J and then from Town J to Town I and then from Town I to Town M.

"We cannot go to Town M directly from any Town except Town I, the reason being that the direct tunnels to Town M had caved in and this was the case for all the Towns connectivity to Town M. It seems that this had been deliberately and the tunnels were destroyed 50 years ago."

"Like last time we will be using four electric cars moving in our travel tunnels and these cars work on electric energy harnessed from the small waterfalls at all the towns. We will reach Town K in less than 25 minutes as our cars go very fast. Town K is about 90 km away and is parallel to Town I and J and is on the other side of the snow covered mountains."

The Orbs kept them covered in spite of all persons having turned to statues and the CCTV cameras being stopped, they were not taking any chances. Even if one person escaped becoming a statue then there could be a witness who could see them passing through these tunnels.

The cars were well made without steering wheels. They could see the speedometer in front adjacent to the panel which had a lot of buttons. They were asked, through a loudspeaker system in each car, not to press any buttons as all the cars were controlled by the lead car. Such action, if attempted by anyone, even by mistake, would affect diversion of that car elsewhere.

They all sat in 4 cars. Mono sat in the first car along with Luke, Sunny, and Danny. Sherpa sat in the second car along with Ben and Chris. Zia sat in the third car with Zoya, Nanu, and Shana. Zen sat in the fourth car along with Tina and Cathy.

The Orbs did not need cars. They just hovered above the cars in a ring-like manner. The group noticed that there was no steering wheel in any of the cars. The cars did not have wheels but glided on a thick steel rod like aperture. Mono pressed a few buttons in the lead car and all the cars started moving together with one another through the long tunnel.

The group members understood the announcement. They all knew how drastic the results would be if they did not follow instructions.

There was nothing to see outside except a long winding tunnel which went on and on. The sides of the tunnel were having lights at regular intervals to ensure that the tunnel would not be in dark. The journey was quite tedious as there was nothing to do. Some persons took a short nap, others were thinking about themselves or about what was to happen at Town K.

They also felt thirsty and hungry. After hunting the car pockets for something to eat, they found packets of snacks and cool drinks. They ate realizing that lunch would be delayed a lot today, so might as well fill their tummies with something to give their stomachs some comfort.

The packets seem to be made of a biodegradable substance. The tetra packets containing the cold drinks also seemed to be made of biodegradable stuff. There was a sign on the packets to dump them in a dustbin kept inside the car. The stuff inside tasted like fried popcorn and the cold drink seemed to be cold and greenish in color. They all wondered what the snacks were made of and what was the cold drink made of? They would ask Mono when they got down from the cars.

Within 20 minutes they reached the landing pad at the arrival tunnel of Town K. The cars stopped at their respective slots and the doors opened. Everyone was surrounded by the Orbs emitting white light. The Orbs once directed, would always follow orders without questions unless the work assigned to them clashed with their conscience.

They got out of the cars and started to follow Mono. This time the journey had had a lot of twists and turns during the tunnel ride. It could be that they were circumnavigating some serious issues or the tunnels were cut into the mountain.

They all saw three hazy statues in various stages of doing something. It was just like what they had seen when they had reached the departure tunnel at Town M, Town I and Town J. Since this was also another town that was far away, it was less on the visiting list. Hence, there were fewer people at the entry tunnel.

Zia thought she would ask Mono later on about the significance of each town so that she could remember for later reference.