Existence - Millennia to Mars

III

Samuel and Matthew managed to get away to the safest place that they could think of for the time being, the Internet cafe that they hung out at sometimes after school. It was close enough to their high school that they could walk there and drop in before heading home for the night; and the great part about it being an Internet cafe was that they were able to look at anything they wanted without fear of being caught by their parents.

Sam managed to park the car in the grocery store parking lot that was beside the strip mall that the cafe was in. Once he got out of the car and put his feet on solid ground he felt more stabilized, more focused. He felt in his pocket for the USB drive and wrapped his fingers tightly around it. There was something on that drive that they needed to see. Now.

Matthew got out of the car shakily and his face was distraught. Having just witnessed his mother murdered in cold blood, Matt seemed to be going into shock. Sam walked around the car and wrapped his arm around Matt's shoulders.

"We have to get inside and find out why they're coming after your family. Your mother was an incredible woman, she didn't deserve what happened to her and I promise you, we will find out who did this. Trust me Matt."

Matthew looked up at Sam and nodded, wiping the tears that were forming off of his face. He wanted to be strong but it was hard. There were so many questions unanswered.

Sam turned and started walking quickly towards the Internet cafe with Matt on his heels. The cafe was a dark and seedy place filled with the kind of gamers and nerds that were either virgins or will never have a girl friend. There was a tang of body odor in the air mixed with the stench of the cheap microwave popcorn they sell for $2.00 a bag to the Internet cafe's customers. 

The lights were so dim that they were barely even lit and an abandoned pool table sat gathering dust on the far left side of the room while the tapping and clicking of rapid fingers on keyboards snapped through the air. They approached a clerk who sat behind a dirty and old looking desk, his greying hair sticking out in unwashed tufts, his eyes hidden behind thick glasses that had smudges distorting his eyes.

"We need a computer for an hour at least." Samuel pulled his wallet from his pocket and placed a $5.00 bill on the counter. The clerk shrugged and reached for the bill, saying nothing as he turned to the cash register and put the money in, removing two dollars and sliding them back towards Sam. 

With a nod of his head to the back corner, the clerk mumbled, "Desk 11."

"Thanks." Sam muttered, snatching up his change and turning towards the back of the room, passing by rows of gamers wearing headsets and staring into their computer screens, their eyes like zombies watching their virtual self's' accomplish more than they ever would in real life. Matt followed him and they sat down in front of computer screen number 11. 

Glancing sideways at Matt, Sam pulled the USB Drive from his pocket and gingerly placed it into the adapter. The once black desktop of the computer screen came alive with the scroll of data feeding into the computer's hard drive. There was a load bar that was moving at a rapid rate, filling up as more and more data scrolled across the screen. It looked like hundreds of pages of documentation being loaded onto the computer and Sam stared at the screen as the encrypted words filled up his eyes. One line after another it continued to load until finally the bar read 100%.

Sam waited for something to happen, but it seemed to be frozen, the 100% load bar was flashing at him, taunting him. He looked at Matt and noticed that Matt's mouth was slightly ajar,, his eyes widened as a loud whirring noise emitted from the computer. Sam turned his head back to face the screen and his mouth dropped open too. 

What they were looking at was photos of rats with tumors protruding out from their fur like giant pimples ready to explode, red veins seeming to pulse out of the tightly drawn skin as it tried desperately not to rip open. The eyes of the rats were a milky white, like that of a blind man who had never seen the world a day in his life.

Sam reached for the mouse and began scrolling down, watching in horror as the photos of the rats progressed into more violent stages of sickness. Blood oozing from the tumors, scratches and chew marks ravaging their limbs as though the rats had attempted to dismember themselves. Empty eye sockets where healthy eyes once were. And at the bottom right corner of each photo, a date stamp with the logo "Hydrotics".

"No." Matthew whispered as he finally broke his eyes away from the horrific images on the screen. "This is why they wanted to kill my father, this is why my mother is dead. They tested the water on rats and it killed them. It killed them." 

"We drink that water..." Sam said slowly, tearing his eyes away from the final photos of the rats' lifeless bodies at the bottom of their cages, the water feeder in the corner branded with the "Hydrotics" logo clear as day.

Sam was struggling to think, he knew they couldn't stay in the internet cafe for much longer; the people that were looking for this USB drive would be searching for them. He realized his hand was hovering on the mouse,  and he noticed a tab on the screen, underneath the photos. He clicked on the tab and a new set of pages began opening. 

Document titles flashed across the screen; 'Hydrotics Water Test: Cancerous Toxins Found.', 'Test Subjects Deaths Directly Related to Hydrotics.', 'Human Subjects Symptoms Less Volatile Than Rats.', and the document list went on and on.

Clicking on one titled 'Hydrotics Release Pending FDA Approval', Sam quickly began reading the article.

Hydrotics Ltd has completed it's testing on animals in the lab and is ready to be released, pending FDA approval. However, the FDA approval is non-existent in a case as large as the water drought the world has experienced. The US Federal government and the United Nations world leaders have decided that the time is ripe to release the water solution, Hydrotics, to the masses. Although testing that was completed in our laboratories have concluded that Hydrotics water contains numerous amounts of toxins and chemical imbalances; such that caused cancerous growths, blindness and mental illnesses in the rats and human test subjects, there is, however, no time for delay or we will risk a more massive depopulation of Earth...

"So they just released it without telling the public that it would cause all these horrible problems? How can they do that?" Sam stared in disbelief at the screen, his mouth hanging open.

"The government can do whatever they want, and they're trying to do whatever they can to cover it up. They killed my mother... and who knows what's happened to my father..." Matthew's fists were shaking, the anger and frustration of what had happened was building up inside him, ready to explode.

Sam stood up, pulling the USB Drive out of the computer and putting into his jean pocket. He turned and put his hand firmly on Matt's shoulder, "We have to leave, now. Before we're next. By now they must have realized that the USB Drive isn't at your house. And they must have seen us fleeing the scene. They would have already looked up what car your parents owned and will be searching for us."

"You're right." Matthew let out a huge sigh, releasing his clenched fists and standing up straight, "Let's go."