The Fall of the Society

Chapter 43: Mission Accepted

     The two waited until the following morning to leave their campsite and begin hiking north, toward their destination. While walking they remained silence, focusing on what was soon to come. They were both used to traveling alone, so the silence did not bother either of them. The terrain was difficult for Rose to traverse as she was not used to traveling on foot. Even when she was with Tripp, they did not walk long distances. Sid made everything look easy, and Rose knew she was slowing him down, but he did not complain or show frustration of any kind.

     Dusk had begun to set on their first day of travel and Rose was completely exhausted. When Sid told her where they were going to camp, she collapsed to a sitting position on a downed tree trunk. He began building a fire at once and set about preparing some food for Rose. Once it was finished, she ate heartily and fell asleep beside the fire. The forest around them was quiet, other than the crackling of the fire and the soft breathing of the now sleeping Rose.

     Sid was not tired, and he had no desire to make himself sleep. He was no stranger to time. Quiet and secluded revere is how he preferred to do his contemplating. Now that Rose was sleeping, he pulled a worn folder from his pack and opened it gingerly. Inside were many files he had taken from his investigations. Across the top of the page was Project Renascentia. It was a research paper that Scion had written based on his own research. He had delved very deep into what made humans so different from everything else in the world. Sid smiled; we are not so different. We eat, sleep, and die, just like almost every other species on the planet. Our main difference is the pleasure we take in all the horrible things we do. Many creatures kill, some even do so for the joy of it, but humans take horrible actions and make it into an art form.

     The time that Scion wasted on pointless research and he could have done so much to improve humanity, rather than furthering his own pointless agenda. His work needed to come to an end, and he was going to use the help of Rose to burn everything he had created. As he studied the papers, the night began to wane, the sun lightening the horizon. Rose was beginning to wake, so Sid placed the paperwork back into his bag and pulled some jerky from his bag and tossed it to the stretching and yawning girl.

     She wandered off into the woods for a moment while Sid prepared to begin hiking once more. When she returned, they did not speak, but headed into the dark forest once more. The terrain was even more treacherous on the second day, causing Rose to move even slower. "If you need to go on without me, I accept that."

     He turned and smiled at her before sitting on a rock and motioning for her to do the same. "There is no mission without you. I took your pace into account when estimating the amount of time it would take us."

     "Why am I so important to your mission?" she asked grumpily. "You have managed for all these years without help, what can I offer that you cannot do yourself?"

     Sid smiled at her, "My healing effects are dangerous to use on others, it can cause horrible uncontrollable mutations. If things play out the way I believe they will, your abilities will be just as important as mine. Granted I have no solid proof that what I plan to do will even work."

     A grimace crossed Rose's beautiful features. "Any chance you are planning on including me in on this plan?"

     "Currently I am not going to tell you, it would not serve you well if my information is incorrect. You will know in time, but that time is not now," he told her flatly. "We should get moving again, we still have a long way to go until we reach or destination. You will have plenty of time to rest properly on the boat."

     Getting to her feet, she once again followed Sid along the winding forest path. She would not openly admit it, but she hated traveling by this means, and she was not looking forward to being in a boat either. Doubts crossed her mind as well as to the intentions of Sid. What was he looking for and why? How much more did he know that he was not telling her? She could not understand why he was so desperate for her to accompany him, yet so unwilling to let her in on the plans. Was he afraid she would not join him if she knew? What if he planned to exploit her powers as the Society had done. He had gone through all the trouble of seeking her out and rescuing her so there had to be a reason for all of it.

      The two crested a large hill, Rose was breathing hard, as a strange sound came from Sid's pack. He pulled the bag from his back and pulled a small electric device that looked a bit like a cell phone from it. The expression on his face changed at once.

     "I am afraid that something has come up that I need to attend to before we visit our main objective," he told her, a note of seriousness in his voice that she had not heard before. "You do not need to accompany me if you do not wish, you may remain at the boat."

     She had not expected this change of events. "What is so important that you have to change the plans? Can you not deal with it afterwards?"

     "There is no time to discuss this now, we need to pick up the pace. I am sorry to do this to you, but I am going to need you to dig deep and push as hard as you are able."

     "Surely you can tell me a little!" she shouted, not meaning to do so. "You take an awful lot for granted!"

     Anger crossed Sid's usually cheerful face, no sign of his signature smile in sight. "Every second wasted is unacceptable. As I once came to your aid, I now must go to the aid of another. We must not delay." He did not wait for her to reply, instead he turned and began running down the hill. Rose quickly followed him. "If you need to do so, you can use your powers to make the path easier for yourself," he shouted over his shoulder as he veered off the path and took a more direct route, directly into the underbrush.

     She plunged herself into the foliage and could not fathom how Sid was managing to slide through it so easily as he was quickly out pacing her. After getting hit in the face with a low hanging branch for the second time, and feeling a cut open on her cheek, a red-hot aura blazed around her. She would have to be careful not to set the forest ablaze. His approval to use her powers when he had so clearly not wanted her to do so forced home the direness of the situation and she pushed herself harder. It was easier now that her abilities were coursing through her body, making her feel full of energy.

     Sid did not slow his pace until the sun was setting and it still took Rose a long while to catch up with him going full out. Bursting her way through a thick bramble of bushes, she nearly collided with him now that he was walking. "Do you need to catch your breath?" he asked her in a shockingly silent tone as he crouched low to the ground.

     She gasped as quietly as she was able, having not realized exactly how tired she was until this moment. "I... will.... be.... fine...."

     He reached his hand into his bag and pulled out a small bottle of fluid and handed it to her. "Drink this," he said simply before crawling forward on his belly across the leaf strewn forest floor, disappearing completely.

     Not wanting to fall behind, she quickly tilted the contents of the small bottle into her mouth and swallowed. The feeling was instantaneous. It felt as though someone had connected an electrical current to her body. A tingling sensation spread from her mouth down to her toes and out to her arms and she felt as though she had never been this energized and she wondered why he had not given her this earlier. Flinging herself enthusiastically onto the ground, she crawled forward. After a few moments of crawling through the dark, she bumped into Sid's feet, and moved along side of him. In front of her was a large open field, with a dock and a small house connected to a beach that was surrounded by a high and rocky cove.

     Sid placed his finger to his lips without removing his eyes from the little building. A few lights were on inside the house and a medium sized boat, which was as big as the house, floated in the water tethered to the dock. She stared at him, waiting for more information, as the energy continued to flow through her. "Stay here," he whispered. "Something is not right." He removed the pack from his back and crawled further forward. Even though she watched him as he moved away from her, he soon blended into the night, and she was surprised at how well he blended in with as bright as the moon was shining.