Chapter Three

It occurred to Nerip that he should make an active attempt to find fellow humans in the village. His instincts agreed. Despite all the amenities available, it would still be a struggle for him to survive in a lonely place without the comforting thought that there were others with him. The best place to start his search seemed to be the houses. So he walked up to the front door of one of them, and rapped his knuckles on it.

    He waited for about a minute. There was no answer.

    He knocked again.

    Still nothing after another few minutes.

    Disappointed, Nerip moved on to the next house, and then to the one next to that, and then to the one after that …

     The sun was just preparing to go down when Nerip finally let off. He had knocked on dozens of doors fruitlessly, and was now forced to conclude that either no one lived in those houses, or they did not open the door for some reason. He decided to go a little further than knocking. He grabbed the doorknob of a front door, turned it and pushed.

    To his surprise, the door swung open.

    Nerip stepped inside, taking slow, hesitant steps as he moved away from the door. The interior of the house was small and humble. Despite the anachronistic outward appearance of the building, the objects within it were modern. The furniture, the utensils in the kitchen, the carpets �" all were not very different from what Nerip recalled about his home. The panes of the windows looked squeaky-clean, and the light that filtered through them illuminated an object which attracted his attention.

    A telephone.

    Driven by instinct, Nerip ran to its side and picked up the receiver.

    There was a dial tone.

     Hope raised its head inside Nerip’s chest. He quickly dialled the number of his home.

     A few seconds of delay, then …

     ‘The number you dialled does not exist. Please make sure that you dialled correctly.’

     The sharp female voice that spoke had a hint of reproof in it, as if dialling a number which did not exist was an offence. Nerip put down the receiver angrily. What the hell was wrong?

    The living room was more up-to-date than the rest of the house. Reflections of much of the room could be caught on a big LCD screen �" turned off �" which was mounted beside a sleek stereo. Myriads of CDs and DVDs were stacked tidily around the two machines. Nerip sat down on the couch; it was huge �" his feet almost left the ground when he leaned back. He snatched up the remote and switched on the LCD screen. There was nothing but harsh static, which stayed the same as he flicked through the channels.

    But there was something different about channel number 25.

    Although the screen had not changed, the sound had. Instead of the uniform static, Nerip thought he heard a series of high-pitched sounds, rather like beeps. The beeps were faint, as if they were coming from far away. Of course, the whole thing might be his imagination, and it would not be the first time he imagined sounds. There had been one incident where he heard the music of favourite song coming from a ceiling fan. He had been seven years old, and had howled excitedly to his mother that the ceiling fan had become musical, only to be laughed at.

     In any case, the beeps stopped after a short while. Nerip turned off the TV and sprung up from the comfortable couch. It was then that he spotted the spiral staircase and made his way towards it. Upstairs, there were two doors facing each other. The one on the left-hand side opened into a spacious double bedroom. On pushing open the other door, a moderate-sized single bedroom came into view. As soon as he saw it, Nerip liked it. The bed sheet and the pillowcases were without wrinkles, and everything else in the bedroom looked perfect as well. Nerip descended the stairs in a slightly good mood �" at least now he had a place where he could sleep at night. He was about to go down the last few steps when it happened.

    Nerip lifted up his face expecting to see the plush living room, but what he saw was pitch darkness. Terrified, he looked around himself, and saw absolutely nothing. He swayed on the spot, and almost fell over.

     What the hell was going on?

 

*  *  *

    

‘Damn it!’

    The words of frustration escaped Dr. Saniv’s mouth before he could stop them. He was in the basement, and was rushing through complete darkness. He stumbled once or twice, and bumped into walls and many unknown objects several times before his hands found what he had been searching for.

    The touch of metal was enough for Dr. Saniv to know that he had arrived at the auxiliary generator. He knew that the machine was painted cerise, but of course he could not see the colour. He groped around like a blind man until his right hand reached the switch. He flipped it on.

    With a deafening roar the gigantic machine came to life. About a second later, the basement was flooded with light as electricity surged through the wires again. The subterranean room was just as large as the warehouse above, but held a much greater number of objects. Various tools and spare parts were scattered all over the floor, as well as on the shelves. A portion of the floor was covered with rags that had been stained black almost entirely. There were also many pails �" some empty, some half-filled with a muddy liquid �" pushed up carelessly against one corner of the basement.

    Dr. Saniv stared at the generator with relief and gratitude. Then his gaze turned to an almost identical machine next to it. This was the main generator, the one which had failed in its duty of generating electricity for as long as its fuel supply lasts. Dr. Saniv looked at it with exasperation. The auxiliary generator would go on for about an hour, and there was no extra fuel. The trip to the nearest gas station and back would take about half an hour, and the warehouse could not be abandoned for that long. And then there was the problem of fixing the main generator. Dr. Saniv’s previous attempts to repair the generator had had only temporary success. The machine had come back on for a minute or two, and then broken down again. The simplest solution to the problem, which was to bring a mechanic, was not an option, for one reason.

     The project was priceless. Its secrecy must be preserved. There could be no compromise on that.

 

*  *  *

 

Nerip could see again.

    The shiny floor was right beneath his feet. The couch, the LCD, the stereo �" everything was back in place. The sunlight of the late afternoon was pouring in through the windows. There was no sign that anything had happened.

     To Nerip, it was quite obvious that he had blacked out. He had a shrewd guess about the reason it had occurred. Since he had arrived at the village, he had not drunk any water as far as he could remember. Too little water in the body can cause temporary loss of consciousness, and the best way to put a stop to that was to simply drink water. In the small kitchen, Nerip found a jug filled with clear, clean-looking g water. He lifted it up with both of his hands and poured the water directly into his wide-open mouth. By the time he stopped drinking, the jug was almost empty. Wiping his mouth in the back of his hand, he strolled out of the kitchen and started pacing around. The slight dizziness he had felt right after regaining consciousness was gone. With so much water now in his body, the possibility of another blackout seemed remote.

     Nerip missed his cell phone. During his long stints away from home, that little device was his medium of communication with his family and friends. He had become used to carrying it around all the time. And now he did not have it.

     Suddenly, Nerip spied something sleek black lying on the floor near the couch. He had just started to walk towards it when he froze.

     Someone was knocking on the front door.