Ryan met Megan and Awasthy as soon as he boarded his car. Awasthy was limping by this time... barely standing on Megan's shoulders. Ryan came out of the car ... grabbed both of them in ecstasy. Awasthy told both of them not to wait and immediately move to CSA to get help. Ryan and Megan took Awasthy home .. called paramedics and left for CSA.
Ryan sped up the car on Broadway. Today he was not guided by the GRIID neither was his car.
'Thank God you are safe..,' Ryan said looking at Megan. 'Where did he take you?'
'It was some wild place on the outskirts of the city.'
Megan saw a big iron weapon in the shape of a cursor come towards them from the front. Ryan tried to escape it by swirling the steering right. Car bumps towards the right side. The sound of applying brakes filled the ears. The smell of burning asphalt rose from the tires. Boom, the side mirror had been vaporized.
Another weapon in a long bar-Cursor shape came and struck on the windscreen of the car. The windscreen of the car got split in half. Behind the bar-Cursor there was an army of cursors.
Ryan tried to race the car but the tires stopped. Tires stuck over something heavy on the ground. Ryan and Megan became numb with fear and their hearts started pounding. Megan's hair was already untidy now her face became pale. Both of them did not know what to do. A plier shaped cursor came and started unlocking the top cover of the car. Squelching sound came with the smell of welding iron sheets.
'Oh gosh,' exclaimed Megan with fear looking at Ryan. She was about to open her seat belt to run out of the car Ryan stopped her hands. An iPad notification distracted Ryan. It was Chris the Cursor jumping on the screen.
'They are Maljens..you don't have time. Just connect the iPad with the USB slot of the car,' Chris the Cursor wrote on the screen.
'Ryan! Don't think about anything else, just connect. We don't have any other option,' Megan, this time, was much more confident with Chris the Cursor.
Ryan quickly connected the USB of the iPad with the USB slot of the car. By this time the plier shaped Maljen was almost at the head of Megan. Megan cover her head with both hands and bowed down.
Whoop.. a wire-net shield appeared between the plier Maljen and Megan's head in a split second. Plier Maljen bumped into it and disappeared with a sound of iron sheet rubbing together.
Another zigzag Maljen cursor came towards Ryan's car. The headlight of the car started turning on and off. Several straight line cursors came out of the headlight and cut the zigzag Maljen into parts. Maljen cursors in the shape of arrows started coming from the front but Chris the Cursor blew them down using straight-line cursors coming out of the front headlights of the car.
While Chris was busy saving Ryan and Megan from the ongoing attack at the front side, a straight Maljen cursor came from behind and the backside of the car started disappearing. Squelching sound came as if the metal balls were being ground.
'Ryan the backside of the car is disappearing,' shouted Megan pointing her finger at the backseat of the car.
'What?' Ryan could not believe it as he turned his head back.
At once a ^Z shaped cursor appeared from the tail light of the left side of the car. The back-lights, bonnet started reappearing and finally other parts of the car also came back. Ryan accidentally turned the steering wheel..now it was free to move. The car took a right turn and sped away, hitting a light pole on the road. Street lights were switched off. As soon as the streetlights were off all the cursors attacking Ryan and Megan disappeared.
Everything was silent as if a big storm had passed through the streets. Ryan was looking at his shattered car. There were filing off the metal sheets from the roof of the car lying all over the road. Megan was thanking God and Chris the Cursor. Ryan looked down to check where his iPad which he had connected to the car's USB.
Chris the Cursor had notified Ryan not to worry. Maljens have gone.
The iPad beeped again.. Ryan murmured who is bothering us now. I am not going to check it.
Megan checked it.. there was another notification-
'Once again Awasthy befooled me... I will take my revenge .. very soon I will attack you again... since you are going to CSA just tell them that I have arrived and I want the GRIID.'
CSA headquarters
Ryan entered the CSA headquarters located beside the building of District Electricity supply in hurried almost automatic steps. Smith showed the way to Ryan to the lift. Ryan reached the lift with following Smith. Smith came behind Ryan and Megan into the lift. As the lift went up Megan introduced herself to Smith. The lift was going up with the speed of jet still Ryan rubbed his shoes against the floor feeling it was taking ages. The lift reached the 7th floor. The lift doors opened into the same big corridor with brown carpet. However Ryan did not notice the smell of whiskey. Smith took Ryan and Megan into the boardroom with a big square table in the middle.
'Welcome Mr. Ryan. Nice to meet you again,' John Baker said to Ryan and turned to Megan, 'and you are..'
'Well I am Megan a weather scientist and his fiancee.'
'I know..It seems I have seen you somewhere...Why do I remember Channel 9 debates.'
'Yes..'
Boris, an expert in extraterrestrial objects, Mr. Agassi an expert in political issues from the office the President and Mr. Mitt, Chief of the GRIID were present in the boardroom.
Ryan sat hurriedly unaware of any formality. He wanted to tell everything to the meeting as soon as possible. Megan had also taken a seat beside Ryan on an empty chair.
Baker turned to Ryan. But before Baker could say anything Ryan said,
'Mr. Baker first let me apologize to you. You understand... Sometimes we are ambitious and we do not know what we are dealing with. I wanted to tell you about everything that had happened in the last 24 hours.'
Ryan's eyebrows raised automatically Ryan gave details of the abduction of Awasthy and Megan and their abrupt return from the captivity of Anti-Cursor. Today no waiter served a cup of coffee. Ryan did not want either he just wanted them to listen.
Mitt and others listened to Ryan and nodded.. not necessarily in affirmation. Now it was Baker's turn for conversation.
'Mr. Ryan let me tell you.., right in the beginning, I asked you in fact kind of request you that this is a matter of immense importance but you guys went ahead with the public announcement of Cursor technology. Then you also went to the Supreme Court to win the rights. Cursor rights. Mr. Mitt you did not stop him,'
Listening to this Mitt was caught off-guard. He nodded in negation and said, 'I am unaware of his decisions on how and why he decided to go on this path.'
Baker continued,
'And that Mr. Awasthy... we had been behind the Cursor invention... since he ran away from the first Mega-event. I know he is a talented man. But what he does not know is that he was playing with fire. Anyway we will get him again.'
'No. Sir, it was not him, it was Creationist who invented Cursors,' Ryan coughed heavily without the sip of coffee.
'Easy boy you should understand in order for him to be safe he must be..,' Smith said from behind Ryan.
Megan turned back and heard Smith, she decided to intervene,
'Sir, let me tell you some of my findings..' She summarized her trip to the north pole and the result of her simulations showing that there is an object in space that could be influencing Aurora causing the Anomaly.
Everybody except Ryan and Megan laughed at listening to this. Baker hiding his smile said,
'So Ms. Megan you want me to tell the President that there is a spaceship out there which is causing Aurora Anomaly and it had the capability to attack people on the ground using Cursor. No...Maljen cursors and it can abduct people who escape it within 24 hours unhurt.'
Everyone once again burst into laughter.
'But that's the truth..,' Megan asserted with her stern voice.
'Ryan and Megan gather all the information you have about the Anti-Cursor and his spaceship we will put our best software called Committee of Machines to analyze that area of space and find out the truth. Our representatives will drop you wherever you want,' Baker left into the next room after a handshake with Ryan, Megan, and Mitt. Ryan thanked Baker with a huge smile.
Ryan and Megan came out of the CSA headquarters. A question was baffling them. What should we do next?
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