Preeti: What? How do you know?Me: I knew you both are girlfriends. I had seen the proof on your mobile. I also have a backup with me if you need it so...eday.Preeti rushed and closed the door before I could get out. Meenal started sobbing.Meenal: Preeti, I told you to delete the pics, why didn’t you listen to me?Preeti: Promise me Gaurav, you will not leak them or tell this to anyone.Me: Hmmm…Meenal: (Crying) Please, Gaurav.I went to her and consoled her. Meanwhile, Preeti also started pleading. "time for something a little different," Bud told me as I stood in my usual spot. "Walk over to the far wall."I walked in the direction I knew he meant and saw that here the wall bulged out slightly about four feet above the floor of the cavern, forming a shelf or bench of solid stone. On the bench I saw several slabs of different materials. The first was a dark yellow, material with a somewhat pebbled surface. Bud drew my attention to it."What is it?" I asked."Natural rubber," he told me. This. They sat, sipping coffee that Vera had provided earlier and making small talk for the first five minutes. Tex got the immediate impression from Bill that Zena was a very important person in his life, and with his unfortunate experience with Marion, something special was required. He would wait for Bill to fill him in."Zena, why don't you fill Tex in on Roger Traubel. Just tell him what you told me on Saturday night," Bill finally said, getting down to business.Zena retold the story of her. “Fascinating, this little plan of yours. To think that I’m not just a leader of a band of survivors, but a cog in the celestial machine, the divine plan for a post-apocalyptic world. Is this because humanity lost its way and needed a course correction of sorts?” I continued to gather from what Ariel both told me ... and didn’t tell me.“That’s one way of putting it, to be sure. In every evolutionary crisis, a bottleneck of sorts occurs. The herd is culled, as it were, certain genes die out,.