"Lucky for us, I think we have the set of keys from the last time. There were a bunch of them on a ring, but only one worked on the two boxes. Let's see if it actually does the trick." She left the room, a tense silence filling the air before Wynne asked Justin:
"Those raiders that attacked you both...what drugs were they carrying?"
"The same blue stuff you told us about a couple of months ago." Wynne sighed, shaking her head.
"Their attack couldn't have been coincidental. We know that they've been after us for quite some time. Maybe an advance scouting party to see if they could take us out before we reached here?" Justin suggested, looking to Ryken, who answered:
"I don't know if people that unstable could work with an advanced group of tacticians like the ones that besieged us. These attackers were calculated, precise, well-armored and from what Cameron has added, has a presence all along the east coast. I've never seen that kind of modified armor before, either, so maybe the raiders to the south asked for a trade. The box for better equipment. Those savages don't need better equipment and if they did get it, I shudder to think of the consequences."
"So then what do we do?"
"We unlock this frickin box!" June came back, jingling a number of keys on a bronze ring that was tarnished by jade green rust. She walked to the box, feeling around the bottom before finding the keyhole and began to unceremoniously jam each key from the ring into the hole. Despite the insanity of the day, Justin couldn't help but chuckle at June's zealous attempts.
"You wouldn't to break the existing keys, would yo-" Wynne silenced herself as one of the keys fit into the box, June turning it clockwise once, a slight clicking heard as the box unsealed itself. She planted it on the ground firmly before opening it, withdrawing a couple of small vials with light blue liquid in them. She gave them to Wynne before taking out four pieces of paper that were tightly folded. Upon unfolding, June passed them down one by one, Justin receiving one handed to him by Ryken. As he examined it, his eyes slowly began to narrow, mumbling:
"This is...this is a map...a map, right?" He traced his finger across the center of the page before nodding to himself, showing it to Cameron.
"Look." The paper had several shapes with jagged lines, some of them intersecting into others, but there was a clear and definitive line that wove through the shapes. The line began at a small dot at the bottom of the paper in the center of the last shape, then it snaked upward, several dots around the line crossed out with thick, black marks. There was a star at the top of the paper with scrawled numbers and letters. On the back was a message that Justin read aloud:
"Dee, the rest of us won't have a chance to get out as soon as you, so we're trusting you so set up shop first. Get to the lighthouse. We'll meet you there."
"The lighthouse has gotta to be the star on the map, right?" He looked to Cameron, laughing.
"Sorry, I know you wouldn't know, but...I mean, we can't overthink it right? They were obviously trying to get their stuff up somewhere."
"What we found in Philadelphia...how does that match up with what we have now?"
"Because this is exactly what the other documents talked about." Wynne chimed in, taking the vials from the ground and holding them up to the dim light emitted from the lanterns attached to the walls.
"This is the last piece."
"What?"
"The last piece, Michael. Those researchers got attacked, but they managed to scatter their findings with different members of their team. The research over purification, vaccinations, growing clean food and water...these vials are the beginning." She looked to Ryken, a small smile on her face as she continued:
"They talked about a solution that could be injected directly into water that could...well, to spare you the minutiae, purify it safely. If this were injected in high enough quantity into soil...the results could be astounding." Wynne then looked to Cameron.
"You had the last hope of civilization in your pack and you didn't even know it."
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TheElvenJedi