The One

Ch-3 Friends can be forever

I was still feeling sleepy. I had slept only for 3 hours. I was trying to understand why the hell would that old man wake up the whole of Asia at night. 15 minutes had elapsed since I filled the form.

The screen had been totally changed to a directly connecting platform as it had now options like world chat, direct chat, conference calls and so on. Language change automatically according to the receiver.

How are they going to select the future elders among such a large number of candidates---
They are giving us guarantee of our lives but how can we trust them--
Still, they have power and we, the humans, have always been hungry for power--
Who needs trust when you have power----

.......The world is really rotting......

The screen again started to show his face. The Old Man was turning the pages this time too. He flipped the file onto a side table.

"I hope you all are using the given screen well. I was wondering what would be the reactions of our candidates. And,your reactions are just as we thought of. Uhm.. I should not delay now. The next step you all are going to do, is to make teams."

Well, this sounds good.
I am feeling like an anime character.

"You can make team with your friends, siblings or you can also randomly select your team from your respective country with the help of 'only my country' option in the chat box. As of now, we will select the candidates country-wise for the starting selection rounds. After that, we will merge everyone. You can also make alliances of many teams. That idiom, I remember, 'The more, the merrier'.

Now idioms, this man is just a normal old man who will sit on a bench in the middle of a park full of people and say, "Politics is ruining our country", I believe.

"But you have only one hour to do everything you want to do. From building teams to saying goodbyes, anything you want to do. You must be in a team to come further in the selections. I hope you all will cooperate. See you all, very soon."

Agbelo ended the call and the screen went back to chat box state. Nitin started to text me furiously.

"Aj, we are gonna be in a same team, right."

"You aren't gonna leave me alone."

"We will kick everyone's ass there."

"Hey, are you listening or not."

"Aj-- Listen moron."

I did a video call to him and then, his thin face was now covering the screen. We were discussing about who is gonna be our team's third and fourth member.

"So, you thought something, like always, right?", he said while furnishing his hairstyle.

"Nope. No. Nothing."

He made the face he used to make always when I was serious about anything, the worried face.

"You are, again, missing that same particular person. I know I am right so there is no need to ask."

"Maybe."

"Your one word answers are annoying me. Look, talk to her. Clear things out. Tell her what you did at that time was-- exceptionally correct. Just do it. She understands you, not more than me, of course."

Just then, Agbelo came again.

"I apologise as I forgot to tell you. Your team must have equal number of both genders, 2 male and 2 females. If you are from LGBTQ, you can be the gender you want to."

Nitin's face was clearly showing his confusion.

He said, "What the heck is this?"
I replied, "Gender equality, son."