Origin of the 11th

Chapter 10: For Society's Sake

"By the way Timothy," Julia said as we walked out of the cavern, carrying a bottle that contained all the milk in the entire pool. "What is your dream? I never really knew that about you before."

"Weren't you going to ask me that in the afterlife?" I recalled in a joking manner. I felt quite happy for some reason. Happiness usually wasn't a feeling that people associated with me very often, but I couldn't help feeling that way because the mission was over.

"I was going to, but the most blatant life hack I've ever seen happened and as a result, I'm still alive." Julia said, rolling her eyes so far that her pupils almost disappeared into her skull. "So I'll ask you here and now. What is your dream?"

"I don't really dream. I tend to just take deal with the things in front of me as they need to be dealt with." I blatantly lied, knowing that there was no evidence for Julia to contradict me on this. In reality, she should be able to infer the truth just from the events that had transpired in that test.

"You have to dream about something." Julia pondered out loud, resting her chin on a finger as she looked upwards. It was a classic thinking maneuver that basically meant that she was trying to lure me into a conversational trap. "What do you want to do when we get back to HQ?" She said finally.

"I'll make it back there first before thinking about it. If there's one thing I learned from this mission; it's that nothing is guaranteed in this world. Anything is subject to change at any moment." I said, thinking about the mission in its entirety. Somehow, everything seemed a little too set up against us, as if something or someone knew we were on this mission and was trying to make us fail. I couldn't let my guard down yet just because of that possibility.

"Yea, I guess you're right." Julia said, giving up her prying for the time being. Then she stopped suddenly.

"Is something wrong?" I asked, also stopping a few feet in front of her and turning around to answer my own question. We were almost at the coastal line, and after that, it would be purely backtracking from there.

"We're being watched." She replied in a whisper, activating Mecha-G and turning around to face the jungle we had just cleared.

"Again?" I complained to no one in particular as Super 11 encased my body. I pulled out my machete right from the start, having seen that it proved much more effective that any other weapon I had used on this stupid continent. I was actually hoping that it was more of those wolf things so I could have a bit of revenge. "More wildlife?" I asked, presuming that Julia could tell better than I could.

"No, these are machine footsteps." Julia replied. Then they appeared. Two mechs, each bearing the logo of the HSFMA, were walking towards us slowly. One was a standard male unit, the other a female unit, and both seemed to have undergone a great deal of complex upgrades.

"State your purpose!" I called out as decreed by standard protocol, but I was relieved to see HSFMA mechs simply because they reminded me that we still had allies.

"To debrief the two of you for the sake of society. Standby momentarily." The female said, taking out something that looked like a radio transmitter. Julia and I nodded; this was standard debriefing procedure given out to normal students.

"Did you procure your objective?" The male inquired. I raised an eyebrow at this. The initial standard in debriefing was supposed to be requesting the military mission code, which had been set for the past two years. I decided that this alone wasn't something to be bothered by, as Julia was technically the leader of the mission and I only had a slight suspicion.

"Yes we did." Julia replied simply.

"Where is it now?" The male asked. This confirmed my suspicions. These mechs were definitely unaware of debriefing procedure. Despite Mecha-G's head not moving, I could feel Julia's eyes travel to me as if she was thinking the same thing that I was. I readied a smokescreen just in case and waited.