The Earth After Rebirth

"Seven." Hiro answered nonchalantly.

The hall was a long one, they\'ve been in and out of rooms for several minutes. Each room having having more useless garbage they couldn\'t use as they went on.

"I don\'t think we will find any other thing, I mean they\'ve all been empty so far." He persisted.

"Can\'t know until we try. Besides, we haven\'t been caught, what\'s the rush?"

He mumbled something about not wanting to be late for the academy and that they should strike while they were still ahead. Which everybody ignored.

Kiro didn\'t want them to leave any stones unturned, if it took the whole night to go through the rooms, so it must be. Though he admitted to himself he didn\'t prefer it that way.

He believed they needed just one more thing, if they could find just one more, it would end as a perfect raid. James followed behind quietly without giving an opinion or complaint.

Although it may have been because he was sulking a bit, because of the interrogative manner in which they asked him any and every question. Some he didn\'t always wanted to answer, but again to avoid any fighting he just went with it.

After deciding they should trust James Hale, they gave him a mask of his own, which he accepted, albeit reluctantly.

They navigated through, finding themselves standing in front of the last door of the corridor. But this door was a bit large than the other, it was also a lot different.

"This one is metallic, it seems to have a lock too. Hiro, can you try and open it?" He was the only one he knew that was pretty good with computers.

"It seems a bit complicated but I can do it." James Hale said at last, walking towards the door.

"No, stop. One wrong attempt will cause for the door to explode." Hiro warned, his voice sounded solemn, almost reminiscent.

"Kid, I\'ve done this a lot. There\'s no lock that I couldn\'t open, you only need to bypass it manually." James sounded more confident than he actually was.

"Yeah, and I\'m telling you that\'s not going to work. This needs to be hacked not pried open. I know this because, because it\'s the work of my dad."

At that last sentence, silence fell in the hall. His friends looked away, not willing to get into talking about his dad again. With how awkward everyone suddenly acted, James decided to fall back and let Hiro do his best.

It was something he hadn\'t seen before but he wouldn\'t mistake his father\'s work for anything. He was the one who helped him every time, they\'d be outside their house working on one thing or the other.

Ever since he was little this was their routine. So much that Hiro picked up the skills and vowed to become like his dad. That\'s why he went for VR sciences in the academy.

He stood in front of the little virtual computer. He took a deep breathe, trying his best to get rid of all the negative emotions he was feeling, trying to focus in the now. When he opened his eyes he had the same look, dwarf Hiro had.

He started hitting the keyboard with great precision and superhuman speed. Even his friends were shocked at how good he seemed to be at whatever he was doing. They couldn\'t hope to understand how he would bypass the first security they\'d encountered but they were rooting for him.

The moment his finger touched the keyboard, a 2 minute timer started counting.

"Is that, an explosive timer?" Kiro gulped, he believed in Hiro but he was also scared.

Hiro didn\'t bother to answer. He was focused on what he was doing to care about anything else. If he failed, they\'d all die, instantaneously.

Everyone else was not looking at Hiro anymore, they fixed on the ticking time, that seemed to be speeding through the already short minutes. But Hiro seemed relaxed and not panicking to them.

He couldn\'t show it to them that he was feeling the pressure. He\'d almost blacked out while standing there, trying to disarm and open. Clearly his father had learned new tricks, tricks he either gained after he had gone missing or he never really taught him everything.

He unfortunately couldn\'t hide all. His expression temporarily showed the emotions within, and Kiro noticed it by sheer luck.

"Hiro, you\'ve got this, right?"

"Of course."

Seeing his friend slightly panicking but keeping it together so that they didn\'t panic was something Kiro respected. His fake calmness was contagious, before long Kiro\'s heart was stilled.

"You\'ve got this buddy." He encouraged.

Hiro gave him a faint smile. Only thirty seconds were left on the clock, Ishaan was about to say something extremely stupid, but Kiro\'s stares were like threatening daggers, so he swallowed his complaints and prepared himself for the death.

His eyes darted from the clock to the screen every second. And every second he did, it felt like he lost about 10 seconds. Of course it wasn\'t so, time really went fast for anyone who wanted it to slow down.

"Haa! Done with 10 seconds to spare, you\'re really something dad." He was sweating a little, he moved away from the computer as the door clicked open.

His back was supported by the nearby wall, his legs were shaking. They couldn\'t support his body, as soon as the pressure left his body, the relief rendered him weak.

\'Dammit. That was really close.\'

The door opened, the room looked empty, nothing was there. No boxes, no papers, no machines, certainly nothing about how to open the prisons.

"Wait, there\'s just no way!" Nikolai was shocked.

"Right? How could the security be tight for an empty room." Ishaan was just as dumbfounded.

"Look, there\'s something in the middle of the room." Felix pointed out.

They walked closer, with Hiro walking slower than a snail. They stood around the hatch on the floor, they got to work work immediate, prying it open with the limited tools they had.

It opened within a few tries, their eyes almost dropped from their skulls when they were presented with what was inside.

The door was small, but the hole seemed a lot spacious. It was dark and damp, it was a wonder though, how they all fit in there.

"Are those, are those kids?" Ishaan stammered.