The Last Human (a novel)

Adrian flicked a wall switch. The sound of a diesel-powered electricity generator came on. "Trying to save our good vegetable-oil-powered generator. We use solar to recharge the laptops and other things. It'll take a second to warm up."

Adrian had traded one of his three redundant extra diesel generators for bio-diesel from an agribusiness plantation in the Central Valley. If they were careful, they had ample fuel for two years.

Idris turned to Merrival. "Everything remaining of Defense Department files came from hackers like you?"

"Yeah. Until the power went off," he said. Then after that they evacuated some disks and memory under fire. No motive for security. Enemy countries are all gone."

Adrian glanced at the electricity flow indicator. "Okay, we can turn it on, now."

Merrival turned on the computer. Its screen lit. He tapped several keyboard keys.

The screen changed.

Merrival did not take his eyes off of it while he rapidly tapped keyboard keys. "Your flower was in a tight code. By the way, these are Bio-war disks. I've got more..."

"Whose tight code?" Idris interrupted.

"Baghdad's," Merrival replied as he tapped the keys.

A warning notice came up on the computer screen: Level one software cannot penetrate. Send to NOVO ICE. Merrival noted it and responded by tapping more keys. "D.O.D. made a perfunctory try to decode it, set it aside. Probably forgot it."

The computer screen flipped several times. Merrival worked intently at the keyboard. Both impressed and anxious, Idris, Lionel, and Adrian could only watch.

"Jungle florae were not high on their war-games priority," Idris sarcastically observed.

"Seems," Merrival replied curtly.

Lionel pointed to the screen. "That's it."

Merrival read the screen out loud. "Codeaum fontinalis delicatissimus." He tapped a couple more keys.