Daniel sighed as he carefully rolled up the blueprint, secreting it back into its hiding place. He had to keep them safe, at least long enough for the ideas they contains to be shared and spread. He contemplated, as he often did, what might happen should one of these blueprints fall into the wrong hands. Ideas were wonderful yet extremely dangerous things, and once unleashed take on a life of their own. 

Thinking back to his meager schooling back at what he called "the compound", he remembered a few of the lessons he had learned with a new perspective gained through experience. One of the older men named James had always taught him and his classmates never to underestimate the power of a man who truly believed in an idea. A man who had the spark of an idea in his mind was a man who had the potential to ignite his heart and the hearts of countless others to rally behind his cause. With careful stoking of the flames, the idea would sweep countless hearts like an inferno consuming all in its path. Every idea had this potential, but needed only one successful implementation.

More often than not an idea would spark that fire in the man's heart, spreading to others of like mind, influencing the lives of all those it touched, and gathering more and more support until it became so ingrained in that society's lives that it became the norm. Such was the case with religion. Ideas of fate, God, or the attainment of enlightenment spread like wildfire through the hearts of those who were willing to believe.

Another such idea was the idea of quantities and being able to label quantities by a system of numbers. Dollars, yen, euros, pounds, and countless other systems of currency were implemented in order to quantify the value of a service or a product. The entire idea of currency seemed a bit strange to Daniel. A slip of paper or a coin of a specific shape and size or with distinctive markings that people used to call money was all that human life revolved around. Those with more of this currency could do more of what they wanted. There were even special slips which could have a quantity written on them in order to transfer a specified amount of funds from one person to another. In the end these were only simple slips of paper and small bits of shaped metal that humans manufactured as a physical representation of the idea of currency. Through this idea, they were able to quantify the power that they had to make others do their bidding.

Such was the sad truth of human nature. We had taken the one universally excepted system, numbers, and found a way to gain more power, but only for those with means to use it.

And that, however, was the other part of the lesson. Ideas are only as powerful as the minds who choose to accept them. A madman would take the idea that a man could fly and jump off a building, while an intelligent man would wonder how this is possible and take steps to understand how such a feat might be accomplished. Other times it required a collective conscious to ponder the idea. This collective conscious made of intelligent minds from many areas of study would be able to collaborate and expand on because this knowledge of their unique expertise. A physicist would be able to explain the forces behind's a birds flight to help them understand what was needed to achieve flight itself. An engineer would be able to take that information and design something capable of providing all necessary elements of flight. A team of builders would be able to complete the engineer's design.

As of right now, that was all he was here for. An idea. So far, the idea had five minds with this spark. Five sparks waiting for the chance to ignite themselves. Walking over to the table, he stood by Cristi's chair next to Eveleyn. Shifting his bag to a more comfortable position on his shoulder, he recognized Sean, a construction worker who was physically the strongest man he'd ever met, though mentally was a bit... Subpar. Still though, it was good to see someone of considerable strength in the group. He didn't know much about the woman standing at his side, but he figured he'd learn more about her as time went on. It appeared she had been a part of the group who found the beer everyone was enjoying. He never took a liking to alcohol, so had none. Instead, his thoughts turned to what else she would be able to scavenge.

Pulling up a seat, he sat at the table, putting his bag full of canned foods next to his chair. He didn't know how soon whatever was going to happen was to occur, but it was always a good thing to be prepared.