the next dark age: book two insanity

chapter 4 abandoned

Angel sat on the coast and tried to let the sound of the waves distract her. She had always known about the militaristic cults that had existed in the UPNA, but had never known anything about what they believed, and she certainly didn't believe there was any truth in what they said.

"Hey" said Adam, who had been sitting next to her for a while also enjoying the view, but not speaking, "I suppose I should ask how you're holding up?"

Angel paused for a second, wondering if she would cry or not "I don't know. Today has been a lot to process, from the kidnapping to the whole Time God business. I guess I'm grateful that we stopped here, it gives me a second to digest everything." Angel wiped a tear in her eye and quickly asked "When we are leaving? I would like to get back to my friends."

"We should leave shortly after Tim finds Sapphire and Trisha. I would like to talk to my sister for a minute before we leave. She might come with us if that's okay, or she might go with Trisha and Stephanie."

"Yeah that's fine with me. Is she uh, as weird as the other two people."

Adam laughed, "she's as normal as a younger sister can be. Truth be told, I think the only normal one is Trisha." Adam turned his head and called out behind him "hey where are those two."

Stephanie looked angry and put a finger to her lips, before waving Adam over to her. Adam raised his eyebrows in surprise, and headed over to Stephanie with Angel.

Stephanie "Okay, so we think something happened here, the buildings here look new, but unfinished, suggesting that there was some recent evacuation." Angel had noticed that too, while the farther ends of the city looked like everywhere else, ruined and dirty, the inner part seemed to be clean, with the edge between the nice and old building having a huge pile of destroyed structures between them. Stephanie continued with "We're worried that maybe the beast's cult might have been here recently."

"Why?" Asked Adam

"Because" said Tim in a loud voice before being shushed by Stephanie and lowering his voice, "because the beast's cult has been kidnapping a lot of people recently, I don't know why."

"Really?" Angel said "There was only one other person at my prison, so I thought it was just me."

"Yeah that is weird. What's even weirder is that they didn't kidnap lance."

"Why?"

"Because he has two genetic modifications and has a certain gene of the Time God running through him, so he would be a great asset to the Time God, and a huge pain for the Beast's cult. I mean after all it was someone with a telepathic gene that took down the TGK, which no one thought was possible. Of course Trisha had three modifications instead of two, but he could still do quite a bit."

"What are you talking about? Lance is like the only person I know who has no modifications."

An uncomfortable silence filled the air, until Tim replied back, in a slightly worried tone, "Oh. Well that changes things."

"Like what?"

"Well, the good news is that you can talk to the Time God with telepathy, so that's good."

"Wait what? Listen from what I've heard from Adam, people with the telepathic gene tend to go on adventures, and I have no desire to do... any of that."

"Yeah that will cause problems. Uh" Tim scratched his head and sat down on a rock nearby, "tell you guys what, why don't you three look for uh, what's her name, and I will think."

"Okay, I will start looking to the north" Stephanie said.

"Okay, I will start with the central area and work south," Adam said "I'm assuming you're coming with me Angel."