NEW BEGINNING

The room was dim, dank, and had a smokey, musty smell to it. Modern conveniences were long in the past. Occasional conversation was low and sporadic. Everyone was mostly too paranoid to talk much, or loud.No one knew who they could, or could not trust. It had been this way since the darkness came long ago. Tierra Reed had grown used to the smells of Culverton. She had been born and raised here. She was the daughter of a program writer for the ancient Department of Justice, or DOJ, as it had been known back then. He was dead now, or so everyone suspected. It had been him who had written the program that was supposed to defeat all enemies both, 'foreign and domestic'. Ultimately, when uploaded into the world wide web, everything had stopped. Within seconds the entire electronic systems the world had come to take for granted were gone.

Tierra sat at what passed as a bar staring into the dingy, smokey mirror five feet in front of her. She held the tin can in both fingerless gloved hands and sipped a lukewarm sugary drink while waiting for her sister, Skylar, to come through the door. Hopefully with the news they had both been searching for.

It had been twelve years since their father had given them the heart-shaped locket and explained how it would be the key to setting the world aright if all went wrong. At the time they had no idea what he had been talking about but still promised to protect it with their very lives if necessary. So far no one had mentioned anything to them about the golden secret.

Tierra's fingers tightened slightly around the tin when the door behind her opened and a small bundle of old skins and ragged miscellaneous clothing stepped in head down under a floppy old hat. She knew instantly it was Skylar. Her breath caught and her heart started beating faster with anticipation. Skylar crossed the room slowly, casually, and slid onto a stool next to Tierra.

"I found a working one," she whispered softly."It hadn't been used. The cord was hanging free."

"Where?" Tierra asked, hardly able to control her excitement.

"I'll show you when you're finished with your drink."

"You want one?"

"No," Skylar replied. "I want this to be over."

"Let's go, then. I'm finished with this sugar water."

The girls slid off their stools and made their way to the door where they slipped out and into the gloomy atmosphere that was Earth in 2025 A.D.

"Do you have the disc?" Skylar asked shoving her hands into her pockets.

"No. We promised to never keep them together. You know that."

"Yeah . . .but sometimes promises are allowed to slip away."

"Not this one," Tierra replied.

An hour later the two girls slipped quietly into a long-abandoned building. Dust was thick on every surface it could cling to. Skylar was lugging a small portable generator concealed in a wooden case with a leather carrying handle.

"Are you sure this is the place?" Tierra asked looking suspiciously around the darkness of the abandoned room.

"Yeah. This is the door I came out through earlier."

"Where is the disc reader you found?"

"Up those stairs," Tierra replied pointing at the wide curving staircase off to their right. "Down a hallway and in an office near the end. I guess it is more like a storage room."

A few minutes later Tierra followed Skylar into the room. Papers, boxes, and long-neglected computers were stacked haphazardly around the room. "I hope this thing works," Tierra said musingly, looking around doubtfully at the mess.

"It did earlier when I plugged the cord into the generator," Skylar replied.

"Let's do it then and see what happens. See if we can start a new beginning for this place."

"People will just tear it down again. It's what people do. Even today as little as we have people are still destroying the last of what we have. I don't know if human beings deserve another chance."

"I just want one chance," Tierra stated longingly.

"You're about to get it if Dad was right," Skylar said setting the generator on the floor. She pulled the rope and it started right up and purred softly.

"Ready," Tierra asked plugging the cord into the generator.

"Yeah," Skylar replied, pushing the button that turned the old computer on. She then pushed another button and a small tray slid out. "The disc goes there."

Tierra took the disc case out of her pocket. Her hands trembled slightly as she opened it, removed the disc and set it just so-so in the receiver. At the bottom of the disc was a perfect double conjoined heart-shaped cutout. Tierra removed the locket from its chain and opened it. She lay it carefully into the cutout on the disc. It fit perfectly. Flawlessly. She had no way of knowing her father had used a laser to cut the shape out after he had uploaded the program onto the disc.

"Ready?" Tierra asked, her finger poised over the start button as the disc tray slid smoothly into the CPU.

"Yeah," Skylar replied. "We have waited long enough.

Tierra pushed the button. The disc began to whir, but other than that nothing happened.

"I'm not sure what I was expecting. But I was expecting something!" Skylar said in a deflated tone.

She had no way of knowing the miracle was happening hundreds of miles above her head as a doomsday satellite came to life and began to activate top secret electrical grids around the world.

Within a few minutes, lights all around them burst into life. Other working machines began to whir to life. The sisters yelped with surprise. They rushed into each other's arms in case the next few seconds were their last on earth. After a few seconds and nothing exploding the girls separated smiling at each other.

"Let's go see what we did?" Tierra said, taking Skylar's hand and leading her from the office.

Outside the sky seemed a little brighter. Around them, lights twinkled here and there. A steady unusual humming sound filled the air. In a sense, it was reassuring that somehow the world was back on the right track and everything was going to be alright.

THE END