Symbiosis: At World's End

New Colony

It was late. Really late. Wendell knew that. She also knew that if she was caught, the council would order her execution before she was even locked up. And yet, here she was.

It was late at night, and Wendell was busy hacking into the council's private records, looking for any suspicious projects. If Merrick was right, hopefully the council would have it registered. Fact of the matter was, they needed to provide a reason for all these supplies to be going places that they shouldn't. There were people whose job it was to analyze shipping manifests to ensure there was nothing out of the ordinary. If they noticed supplies going where they shouldn't, the council would be put under scrutiny and people would start investigating. Thus, the council would want to provide a reason for the people in charge of shipping to not see anything out of the ordinary.

The screen flickered, then a long list of projects appeared, sorted by most visited. Sitting at the top of the list was a 'Project Ark'. She opened the folder and felt her jaw drop. The council truly was insane.

They were constructing a series of bombs, viruses, generally a varied group of weapons, both organic and artificial, to wipe all life from the planet, including those who worked at all the sites! Once they were done, they were going to fire special rockets to dispense new flora into the world. They also had a machine designed to release fauna back into the wild, which were being kept at various sites around the world.

Wendell copied the file to her personal drive and erased all evidence of her entry before withdrawing from the system. She opened one of her personal folders and brought up a screen displaying an image of the armor she had designed as well as several images of DNA strands. She was almost ready.

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Brianna's day was going pretty well. She woke up relatively early and checked on her father, who was still asleep, then went out and explored the area around their landing/campsite. She didn't see anything of note. There were a few animals around, but nothing she considered worth a meal. She got back to find everyone outside, working on various things. Paula was preparing breakfast, Merrick was collecting wood for the fire, and Terry was covering the plane with leafy branches to disguise it from anyone who might fly over, looking for them.

Brianna joined Terry in his work. By the time they were called down for breakfast, they had covered roughly a third of the plane. They ate swiftly, then went back to work. All of them worked on hauling leaves and other plant life over the plane until it was at least half-past noon. From there, they set to work creating a makeshift sledge to haul Cruz with as well as loading up the supplies they would need. According to Merrick, who had travelled through here during a previous year, there was a popular gathering spot a few miles south, by a large stretch of ocean.

Once they were all packed, they set off with their symbiotes in the form of normal clothing. Merrick had a gray hoodie with a sideways black spider logo printed over the whole thing, a black tee shirt, black pants, and runners with gray laces. Brianna had a red jacket with a black zipper on the front, a black tank top with a white spider logo, black pants with red lines, and black/red checkered runners. Terry was wearing a grey hoodie with an orange zipper and orange spiked stripes running horizontally across his torso that ended before the zipper, an orange shirt, black pants with orange around the pockets, and orange runners. Paula was wearing a blue hoodie with black lines on it and black drawstrings, a blue and black shirt, and white runners with dashes of blue with black laces.

They had two duffel bags filled with food, a large backpack filled with water bottles, and Cruz on his sledge. He was being pulled by Terry. They travelled for a while, sticking to sandy areas. Merrick had warned them that there were swamps in the area as well as patches of quicksand, but it was fairly easy to avoid if you followed the 'sand trail'. It was actually pretty accurately named. It was an animal trail that decades of wind had filled in with sand from the beaches. They stuck to it, even if it was a little winding. They ended up seeing a few monkeys and even a crocodile! Merrick assured them that it wasn't aggressive. According to him, that croc was usually there. He had heard it from other runners that they called it 'Old Man Croc' because he was there so often.