Chapter 8: Plans

After all the commotion and the rest of the night being relatively quiet, we all woke up after a bit of a sleep in. It was a cold fresh morning with fog sitting low on the grass, insects buzzing around and birds chirping in the distance. It felt like a slow morning, and it showed with people slowly coming to and rising to meet the day, it was quiet and subdued with everyone recovering from such a harrowing night and the potential consequences of the lake not working though there was an underlying sense of hope in the faces of the new inhabitants.

With the morning slowly passing we all met up and sat down outside the club rooms overlooking the lake, Theo had recovered a lot of the colour to his face and his parents had recovered from their ordeal. We could see the questions racing through their heads and looking at each other we came to a silent agreement, and I proceeded to explain the situation and what we had discovered from the Sanctuary so far.

I didn't worry too much about the secrets getting out, firstly we wouldn't stay here forever so it was inevitable that someone else would discover the area after we had left and secondly it felt like something that should be known to different people as this could be crucial to our survival.

I did keep our personal developments secret for now, mainly as I wasn't sure how the things from the Sanctuary affected people; due to us only experimenting on a small group. This wasn't a large case study with different parameters to base a thesis or study on, we were going off the exposure over a short time period and if we wanted to stick by the results, it would need a much longer look and documentation. If we were an outlier in the development, then not sticking out would be crucial to avoid unnecessary attention hence keeping our personal development hush hush.

After telling Thomas, Natalie and Theo about what we discovered we could see the excitement in their eyes and the possibilities running wild.

"Now we have found some of the resources in the Sanctuary that have helped up improve our abilities though they have been slightly different to each of us so try not to base your expectations on what happened to us. If you would like we can help you through the process as we have first-hand experience."

"Yeah, I think Nat and I will try it out, but Theo will have to wait as we want to test it first..." Hearing the uttering of protest from Theo Tom turned to him,

"Hey buddy I know it is exciting and the idea of powers is like a dream come true, but we don't know how it's going to affect us. Yes, it could be alright, but they have only tested it on themselves."

"Probably a wise choice Thomas, "

"Call me Tom".

"As your dad said Theo, we have only tested it on each of us and if he wants to be careful it might be for the best, and hey if all goes well you might only be waiting for a few hours."

After pacifying Theo, we walked Tom and Nat over to the canteen and took out the respective items. Tom was going to eat some of the berry and Nat was going to try the vegetables, looking at each other they gave the other person a hesitant nod and put them in their mouths. Seeing Nat go through the same process that we did showed our test was a success and it was pretty standard so far. Tom on the other hand had a slight reaction to the portion he ate but not to the level of Sarah or me and probably a bit more than Daniel had.

We took out another segment, making it just over half a berry he ate, and the shakes started, it didn't get old watching someone go through the process and the subsequent need to expend the excess energy. Seeing the other individual go through what was described without any difference to what was explained to them helped relax their worries about it possibly affecting people differently and you could see the hope in young Theo's eyes.

In the process of the effects subsiding, I approached Tom and Nat and brought them over to Theo, I wanted to explain one of my theories which while would make them feel better it might put me in their sons' bad books.

"Now I know we have wanted to see the effects on your parents to confirm what we talked about and to validate our results and it seems to have gone well but I did want to bring to your attention a theory of mine.

You see what I think happens with the items we have tested so far today is that they boost their respective areas of your body, the berry your physical capabilities such as strength, speed and muscle density and the vegetables your mental faculties. Now what I am pretty sure is the case is that the better your starting point the more you improve, while I improved quite a lot for someone who hasn't really trained before, the difference between Daniel and me was completely different.

He used the initial boost of energy from the berry when entering the forest to vault over the shadow cats clearing them by about 3 – 4 metres. While on my initial high from the berry I maxed my jump to about a metre, the level of my fitness restrained me from gaining the biggest benefit. We still haven't tested if it is a one-time use or a repetitive use item, so it comes down to you and depends if you want to take it early or can handle waiting to increase the level of fitness, which we are more than happy to help with."

Seeing the down hearted look on his face I reassured him that this wasn't me saying no, just not yet however it is still up to him and his parents. I could see Tom and Nat eyeing me with gratitude and I'm sure the idea of putting a young child through what they had freaked them out a bit. They could see the added benefit to waiting and developing before making the first step and the gradual resignation on his young face was replaced quickly be steely determination.

"I want to be strong like Dan and save everyone!"

"Oh don't inflate his head even further." Sarah said with a groan making us all laugh.

"Hey he just knows who is the best here after all."

Tom, Nat and I couldn't help bursting out laughing at the back and forth between the two of them and continuing for a few minutes Dan then suddenly turned and looked at Theo and with a serious face said, "don't worry little dude I'll make sure you get big and strong", giving Theo a big grin and thumbs up.

Coming to a consensus that we would wait until Theo was a bit older and physically fit we came down to planning out the future. After a lengthy discussion we found out that they didn't have much else going on in the area, all of Tom and Nat's family were over east as they had moved when young and before Theo was born to Perth. They wanted to eventually get in contact with their families but due to the communication black out they also realised that it wouldn't be feasible in the short term.

We came to the realisation that at the current time using the Sanctuary as our base of operation would be for the best and sourcing supplies and resources for future survival was vital to ensure we didn't run out of food and medication. The medication probably wasn't as vital due to the lake being extremely useful for healing our bodies, but we didn't think it cured any genetic deficiencies or illnesses requiring medication to treat.

Ensuring that we are to survive in the expeditions out of the Sanctuary we would need to enhance our bodies as much as possible and this mean eating more of the items we had gathered. This also meant further testing to see if we could get the effects beyond the initial consumption, so that was in my priorities as well as putting together a plan for what we need to collect for Dan and eventually the other adults to collect.

Creating a set list of supplies that we need, meant also coming to the conclusion that in the process of scavenging we may come across other survivors so ensuring we had enough spaces for people to sleep, clothing and toiletries to supply everyone was high on the list. We knew that we needed to band together to survive and excluding others would only breed resentment and come back to bite us in the long term. Granted that if we came across anyone who was committing a crime or was a serious threat, we planned to avoid them and make sure we didn't lead them back here.

Finding out that Tom was a registered builder and had owned a small company that he contracted out to larger building companies that created bespoke designs for the more affluent was a massive advantage. Any maintenance or construction needs were covered, and he was more than happy to oversee any future plans, to go along with that was his wife Nat who was his bookkeeper and general supplies manager. She kept an eye on their accounts and ordered the required materials for projects and managed the behind the scenes work that kept the business running.

Nat was happy to take over as the quartermaster in a way, taking inventory of the current stock we had on hand and going by the list we made figure out the quantities we would need for the current number and future increases in population. Theo didn't have many responsibilities due to his age, mainly it was to help with keeping the place clean and help bring the food out, apart from some basic exercises over seen by Daniel he had it the easiest and we wanted to keep it that way as overloading him with responsibilities and chores was unnecessary especially with so few people here.

Dan, Sarah and I were in charge of collecting supplies inside and outside the Sanctuary and in general vetting anyone who may come to join us. We made sure that we kept a record of the number of berries, vegetable and flowers we had collected, and over saw any consumption of said items. We set a rule that only one portion of each were to be taken at a time, this ensured we were able to document the results and plan out accordingly.

Coming up with a solid plan we started putting it into place, the three of us decided to take another helping of the food. Asking Tom and Nat to watch over us in case something goes horribly wrong, which were pretty confident wasn't going to happen, it pretty much happened just like normal apart from Sarah trying a different colour flower being red and putting her sense of touch on overdrive, she could feel the individual fibers of her clothes and everything down to the individual veins on the blades of grass on the ground.

I did notice that the effect of the berry while still pretty extreme had diminished slightly, still the crazy rush of energy and improvement on my already existing improvement, so this leant to the possibility that it was a repetitive use item. So now it came down to how far we could push it, would there be a cap to the enhancement, or could we use it perpetually?

After Daniel had taken his portion, he wanted to get a start on the scavenging and resource acquisition. Packing a bag with some supplies and medical items he headed in the opposite direction to the day before and not seeing any cats in the tree line he moved much more calmly into the forest armed with his sharpened broom handle still stained in the cats blood which had given the end a black tint seeming charred. Moving back to the club house the day passed pretty mundanely with nothing out of the ordinary happening. We continued moving around the territory checking out every area in case of any changes taking place, collecting food and generally peering into the tree line when we came close to see if we could spot anything.

Tom and Nat kept an eye on Theo making sure he was keeping to the exercise plan Dan had created for him not pushing himself beyond where he should be. Apart from that nothing much changed, we didn't have a huge deal going on at the moment so waiting until Dan was back we just killed time until something came up or he came back. Tom and Nat had also taken some more of the food and got the enhancement the other got last time.

The only difference was that Nat was only able to handle the same amount of berry that Sarah and I had taken initially, and it also turned out that regardless of the amount of vegetable you ate it still had the same effect. Something that skipped our minds to check earlier when tom had taken a tomato and eaten it in two bites after not seeing that strong a reaction from Nat that morning. We all freaked out thinking it would overload his body but he still just showed the normal reaction we expected from it.

Apart from that moment of excitement nothing much else changed and later on that evening just before the sun set Dan made it back, without the same level of urgency that he had last time. Making his way over to us he had collected some basic medical supplies and cans of fruit and vegetables, nothing too major as he didn't really have anything larger than a sports bag to carry his own supplies and anything he may collect. That could have to be something that we look at getting as if we want to set out on regular expeditions, we would need something more designed to carry large amounts.

Dan mentioned that he noticed signs of people living in the areas he was moving around, though they were all up too high so he couldn't see for sure how many people there were. The only way he could tell was that the lights were on in a few houses despite there being no noise, which he attributed to the fact there was a larger than normal amount of shadow cats around the area. If we had any chance of helping any one out by bringing them back here or getting them supplies, we would have to get some serious training in so we could combat them effectively.

Deciding to come up with a plan for some combat training; in particular helping us to adjust to our increased physical abilities and how to use them properly in a combat situation, we planned to train and spar each morning with some sharpened handles of the mops and brooms. These had already been seen as effective against the cats with Dan killing one and injuring several others, give it a few days and we should be able to at least defend ourselves if not hold them off. We didn't have any ideas of being able to replicate what Dan had done, but if we could hold our own while also helping others out it would easy the worry in our hearts of the same situation ever happening like it had with Theo and his family.