Night fell as Corin made her way, finally after a 4 day journey, along a empty road to the new meeting point, marked in an old referdex(street map book). The place, a old abandoned town called Contempt, in the middle of nowhere.
The endless landscape, where trees scattered sparingly across the rolling hills as the roads weave between them, aides the repetitive pattern. As Corin gets caught up in her own inner cycle of thoughts. Wondering if she is overacting, then remembering the Kelly's last message, again reconsidering that the whole situation may have been a misunderstanding. Or maybe it was blown well out of proportion.
What if there was a reason the backup data was needed, it may help in an investigation. Only to return once again and realize, that all the data and information about the CAC event was suppressed online. This was not helped by the lack of media coverage, no news stories were run and all newspapers were silent. As a celebrity sex scandals dominates the headlines along with the hacking and release of various starlets private pics. Where a small 2 paragraph article, hidden amongst a half page and a quarter page advert, describes the story of a strange mass 'hallucination event'.
Still unable to resolve the conflicting thoughts and feelings, Corin's failed attempts at rationalizing the events, were briefly forgotten during the various towns and stops. Good thing there was some money inside the referdex, otherwise she would have used her credit-chip at the first gas station. Which would have been rather difficult because in some of these older towns, they only used physical currency. All in all, these towns, characters and rest stops helped Corin keep herself from falling to far down the rabbit hole of 'what it'.
**-***-***-**
Over the last few days journey, Mike and Doug were able to curb Scott's paranoid conspiracy ramblings, enough to let the others have a reasonably fine trip considering the circumstance. Each car had a referdex with money and a new meeting place, the town of Contempt. However it was only Scott who had the map of where to go from there. This meant that they all had to meet up first, after all without Scott's map they wouldn't know where to go after they got to Contempt.
Having met up with Corin, 3 hours outside of Contempt, the group spend the night discussing the information they have been able to gather. Corin being the journalist was more concerned with newspapers and independent news papers, showing them all the collection she had picked up over the journey. The lack discussion and coverage, sent up red flags for Scott even more, because he is unable to check his normal sources and channels. He had stipulated himself, “No tech that can be tracked”, as such he was going through withdrawals and had become overly frustrated, much like most of the other children on the trip. This however didn't stop Scott from using the web, in the towns they passed, if there was an internet cafe or community computer centre.
However Scott was restricted further because he couldn't search outside the normal keywords and search strings of the town they went through. Otherwise it would leave an obvious trail, especially if he constantly searched or visited the same sites every time they went to the next town. Even with this restriction he was able to garner a few pieces of information without click-through, about a how a few conspiracies built up around the hallucination event. Still some people considered a viral marketing campaign or something else based around the CAC, but these threads quickly became ghost threads.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Still it was Dananel who found the most valuable information for the group, it was a history of Contempt. A mining town, built up around the ore boom 75 years ago, when it was owned majority by some shell corporation. Its main export was copper and iron, however once the mine ran dry the town was left to die off naturally. Everyone had moved away, except for a few families who decided to try and make a go of the situation, the populace is now at a measly 17 people. There is one motel, gas station which doubles as the grocer and a run down mechanic with junkyard. The town's name seemed to reflect an idea of contempt against modern society and technological progress. There was no web access, and even satellite coverage was limited in the region.
While the catch ups and discussions were going on, Sheryl and Mike's wife, Claudia, lead the 3 children in around of camping games and songs. Doug's two teenager's, Jordan and Lindsey, were helping Alice cook, this is where Jordan's 3 years of scouts helped him. Setting up and stoking the fire, while helping where he could as Lindsey reluctantly used her skills to debone the fish they had all caught earlier. Even so they both sneakily eavesdropped on the adults conversation, some what understanding the situation.
Lindsey was furious that had they had to uproot their whole lives, leaving her friends behind not to mention her whole way of life. But she secretly like the fact it kind of made her like a protagonist or damsel in a thriller drama movie, with a corrupt government official sending black ops or troops after them. Maybe there was a heroic soldier who'd rescue them from the crazed lunatic, Scott, and it would become a headline story itself because Corin was involved, rocketing her to fame and fortune if she could get it out.
Jordan on the other hand was happy, it was an adventure with a ridiculous circumstance, but he gets to put to use skills he gained from both his Scouts and SEVR-tech gaming. Hunting animals for food, living off the land and even getting the chance to make or craft things. He'd already made a rough deer leather vest, from some road kill they had found. It had to be thrown out because he couldn't cure the hide properly due to the decay, but he could see it would have worked. However he did miss his friends, but, they were pricks anyway. Argh but they were his Pricks, his friends, his competition and rivals. 'If they could see me now, they'd be jealous as shit!' he thinks to himself, as he swings an axe making more firewood.
**-***-***-**
The sun rises on the final day of travel as Mike rise early to greet Scott who has been on look out for the past 4 hours.
Scott retrieves the map from his backpack, “We will have a ways to walk once we get there. Looking at this it'll be atleast a 5 hour hike, 8 or 10 including breaks for the kids. That's a rough estimate though.”
Mike grabs a cooler and walks over to the dying campfire, as Scott places another log on. Taking out a bottle of water Mike hands it to Scott before grabbing one for himself.
“Well, that's if nothing goes too wrong and it'll mean we'll be arriving late tonight. It is looking like we'll have to make camp again.” Mike states before taking a swig of water.
Shaking his head Scott replies “That won't work, the walk will have to be done one hit. NO stops, NO campsites, nothing that can indicate we stopped there.” Then looking at his watch, it is 5 am, they'll need to be packed up and gone by 0630 latest.
Mike sighs in a slight frustration, Scott has been riding the group hard, while also trying to abide by their needs. With the final goal in sight, it seems that Scott is pushing a little harder.
They both then look over campsite, Corin is sleeping in her car, after all it had been outfitted for that. Harper and her twin brothers had their own tent, as did Dananel and Sheryl, Doug thought shared a tent with Jordan and Scott, while Alice and Lindsey had their own. The last tent was for Mike, Claudia and their daughter April.
“Alright then, the sooner we arrive the sooner you'll relax and then we can too.” Mike resigns as he gets up to rouse the others in the camp.