Freegans part 19

Cara
I didn't want to admit it, but my eyelids were growing heavy, and it was all I could do to keep from dozing off. But as the (rather self-appointed) leader, I had to try and keep a good profile. I was doing my best, but I could tell Matt wasn't fooled.
"You should go to sleep, Cara. I can take the first watch," he said aloud.
"Don't be silly. I'm fine," I said indignantly, pinching myself quickly. Matt gave me a skeptical glance.
"Cara, you are tired. If you don't go to sleep this instant, I will make you."
"How?"
"By physical force, if necessary."

I glared at him, and then betrayed myself by yawning. Matt grinned triumphantly. "Fine," I muttered. Lucy and Ben were already down and out, and Madiza was just sitting by herself, muttering and drawing using one of the pieces of chalk that had been in the pack. I barely stopped to wonder what she was drawing before I was asleep too.
My dreams were mainly nightmares. I was chased by a giant, fanged helicopter, which kept trying to stab me in the back with its blades. No matter how fast I ran, the helicopter was always right on my tail. Then I stumbled, and was falling, into a giant mouth. The mouth began closing. I screamed in pain as one of the fangs stabbed me in the ribs.

I awoke with a start, and realized that Matt was poking me. "Whassup?" I mumbled, sitting up.
"Cara, I think you should see what Madiza's doing," he said. Giving me a hand up, he pulled me over. Madiza's chalk had been halfway used up by now, and what its purpose had been surprised me. She appeared to have drawn first the cross-section of an eyeball, with all the parts labeled and everything. Then she had scrawled some kind of complicated calculus equation, followed by a couple more mathematical formulas. Now she was writing a set of instructions for something. I read it quietly.
"To put together your computer, insert-" I stopped. Madiza had frozen, and was looking down one of the corridors. If she had been a dog, her ears would have been pricked.

"Madiza, what is it?" asked Matt. Madiza only cackled softly, before saying in a singsong tone, "Mr. B, Mr. B, Big Sister doesn't like you playing with me!" She snickered. I grabbed her shoulder and looked straight into her glassy eyes. "What are you talking about, Madiza?!" She didn't have to answer. Suddenly we all could hear a loud, creaking noise, heading straight for us.

Freegans part 18

Lucy

After everyone had gotten something to eat, we headed off again, and didn't stop until I collapsed. To be honest, I'm not much of an athlete even at my best, and all of this running around was starting to take its toll on me. I couldn't go on another step, which meant that the others couldn't either. We just settled down in the pipe. I could tell Cara wanted to go on, but out of concern for me, she decided we needed to take a rest. Everyone sat really close. Nobody wanted to be in a position where they could get killed if we were found.

To my delight, Ben came and sat down by me. I knew it was pointless to notice, but he was honestly very cute. I especially thought his blue eyes, though out of place in his Indian features, were beautiful. I wanted to say something to him, but when I tried, nothing came to mind. Not wanting to embarrass myself, I finally decided to just stay quiet. Instead, I looked at the others, the walls, anywhere but at him.

Cara and Matt were over in a corner talking, and Madiza was rocking back and forth, chattering to herself. It was during this scene that I dropped off to sleep.

Freegans part 17

Matt
"I wonder why these boots were thrown away," said Lucy, looking at them. "They seem to be in good condition to me."
Cara gestured to the right one, which had a splash of what looked like purple nail polish on the toe(Yes, we had nail polish back at the camp. Lucy's little sisters were always putting it on). She rolled her eyes in disgust. "These consumerist people are so wasteful! It's sickening!"

We headed in the opposite direction in the pipe, away from the drop off. Cara led the way, holding Madiza's candle. I went up by her in case of any more accidents, and Madiza came behind me. Lucy and Ben were in the back. I could tell that something was on Cara's mind, because she was muttering under her breath, and her forehead was puckered with deep thought.
"If you keep doing that you'll end up like Madiza," I said. Cara smiled. It was the first time I'd seen her do that since this adventure had started.
"Well, I see a potential problem in our escape plan. Namely, food and water. Where are we supposed to get any? We can't survive in this tunnel without them. And light would also be good. This candle isn't going to last forever."
"That's more than one potential problem," I said.
"You know what I mean!"

At that moment, I noticed something up ahead. "Hey, what's that?" I asked. Cara stopped short, and peered into the darkness. Because of the sudden halt, Madiza bumped into me from behind, and it was only by the grace of God that I didn't bump into Cara.
"It's a pack!" she said. Cautiously she walked forward. It seemed normal enough. She kicked it lightly with the toe of her boot. When nothing happened, she reached out and picked it up, carefully bringing it back to us.
"Be careful," I warned, "it might have a bomb or something."
" I know that," Cara replied. The others tried to get a look, but the lack of space in the tunnel made it difficult. Finally, we managed to form a circle of sorts, and looked at the pack. It was made of burlap, and had a clasp holding it shut. With trembling fingers, Cara undid the clasp. We could not believe what we saw inside.

"Food!" said Madiza in delight. Before anyone could stop her, she grabbed a piece of bread, a roll, from the pack and stuffed it into her mouth! "Madiza!" said Lucy in shock. Ignoring her, the crazy girl chewed vigorously, then gulped it down. She grinned, showing needle-sharp teeth.
"Well," wrote Ben on his paper, "it doesn't seem like she's about to keel over and die. I suppose we could try it."
"Let's wait a minute," said Cara. After the minute was up and Madiza still hadn't exploded or turned green, we each helped ourselves to some of the food. Most of it was pretty hardy stuff, cheeses and bread, and there was even a jar of honey and some water. The water was a little warm, but nobody cared. We hadn't tasted food in a long while, and hadn't even realized how hungry we were. Madiza and Ben ate as if they had been through a three-year famine, which they pretty much had. I sat by Cara as we ate, and helped her look more through the pack.

There was also a rope, grappling hooks, and some pieces of chalk. But there was something else more intriguing.
"Paper!" said Cara in surprise. "And several pencils! It's almost as if whoever left this pack knew we would have a mute person with us!" We looked at each other. This was strange.

Freegans part 16

You may have been wondering what was happening with my story. Well, just so you know, I have been waiting for a special guest writer to give his part, so here it is!

I carefully made my way around the corner, being sure not to hurry. My uniform was impeccable, as I knew, but I still had the desire to break and run every time I saw a fellow soldier, or even when I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Max had been clear about this, had warned me beforehand how it would be, had made me practice walking calmly over and over again. I was more grateful then ever for her intelligence and foresight.
Two guards passed me, laughing about some holonet vid they had just seen. I gave them a bored glance, remembering to keep my stride even. One, two, one, two. I got to the stairs down and slowly opened the door to the basement. I closed the door behind me, turned, and slowly let out my breath. They were gone. They had found the tunnel, and they had taken Project 112 with them. I quickly ran to the cage, opened it with the key copy I had made, and did my best to hide all traces around the stone which hid the mouth of the tunnel. As I did so, I wondered how much time I could give them before reporting them missing... The guards had seen me on my way down, but they would be at break and the new guards wouldn't know how long I'd been down. I decided I could wait for another five minutes at the most. I quickly hid any tracks and relocked the cage, trying to get ahold of my excitement. I couldn't wait to tell my friends. "Run, kids, run," I whispered under my breath.
As I waited, I began to worry about the small group. As the Ox and I had been digging the tunnel earlier this month, he had almost fallen down a sudden dropoff. I hoped the children noticed the warnings we had put up around the pits and around the dead ends. Hopefully, they would also find the food and tool caches we had left. I got up and started up the stairs to sound the alarm, taking care to quicken my breathing and paste a look of surprise on my face.
Chalk one up for the Resistance.

Survey

Out of idle curiosity, if one of you had the chance to take over the world, how would you go about doing it? Submit your replies when convinient.