Rick felt relieved to share part of his burden with Joe, Maya, and Ethan. At this moment, his biggest concern was finding out who had tried to kill him, and for what reason. But he couldn't investigate that now, creating a safe base to endure what was to come in the next 20 days was more important to ensure the safety of his family.
Still in the room, several minutes had passed since Rick told the truth. He left out the strange system he now had and prioritized certain events that would happen later this year. In addition to giving more details about the level 3 mutants.
Ethan was the first to come out of his thoughts. His eyes turned to the many items Rick had taken from his inventory: The power core, the quantum transmission antenna, the industrial laser pistol, and the many other essential items they might need.
"To be honest, Rick, with this equipment we can transmit a message immediately to all of Jyera, we can even transmit it to Jyor. But only if they have the equipment to hear us…"
Jyor was the only planet besides Jyera in this solar system. Despite being colonized, its population was only 1/6 of all of Jyera. Rick and the other survivors of the apocalypse were never able to contact them during the almost 10 years of the apocalypse. Of course, technology was the main limiting factor, but other methods were also used; in the end, everyone deduced that Jyor had completely fallen to the pandemic.
"I want to help other survivors, and find out more details about the owner of that drone. But what if they can track the antenna signal and send something even worse than the drone?"
"Okay, I'll take care of the priorities that our base needs now, and we can figure out a way to send the messages without being tracked after that." Ethan then left the room, taking some of the items with him.
Maya then looked at Rick and asked: "So… Is that your level 3 ability that you used to destroy the drone?"
"Yes, every human who reaches that level can control a type of force, the survivors called it the Universal Force; some said it was a gift, magic, or forces of nature."
"I'm already at level 2, can I use it? How do I activate it?" Joe asked excitedly.
"I probably went into a coma for a week for using it before level 3. My Universal Force is space, one of the rarest abilities there is. Not only that, it's one of the most powerful but dangerous, and one of the hardest to control… I trained for many years, that's why I was able to use it this time. But if your ability is something dangerous like mine, and you use it at level 2, it could end up killing you."
"I reached level 3 in the first apocalypse? What was my universal force?" Maya asked.
"I don't know, you could heal people, but I don't know what kind of strength it was, since you weren't part of my group…" Rick lied, as he told her a little more about the group she led…
"So, how do you control this force? Can you give us some more examples?" Maya insisted.
"Some people could control the Universal Force of water, but even among them, there were variations; like someone who generated water from nothing, others could only control the existing water in the environment, others produced steam, and some ice. Besides, each one needs to understand their power to use it most appropriately...
...At level 3, you will feel which force you can control, and then you can start practicing. I trained for a long time to understand my power, think of it as if you had an extra limb, and little by little, you learn to use it. Starting with small steps, a light jog and a real marathon."
Joe got excited and was about to ask another question, but I raised a hand to interrupt him.
"Leave the details of being a level 3 for when we are truly level 3. Now let's talk about important things."
I waved my hand, taking out all the medical supplies we had collected from Maya's base from my inventory, keeping only a small portion of them with me.
"Maya, let my little sister become your assistant. Ask her to help you sort through all these medical supplies and set up a hospital with a few beds. You can take any empty house in the village for this."
"Will she accept?" She said, smiling.
"She has a lot of energy, she will cause trouble if she doesn't have something to do…"
"Okay, leave it to me."
After Maya left, I finished dressing in the regular clothes my little sister had brought, put on a firefighter's gas mask, and left the room with Joe. The mask was their idea to prevent me from being targeted again by the mysterious drones. There were other people in the village wearing masks thanks to Joe's warnings, whether the drone had found me using facial recognition, I wasn't sure, but this time I wasn't going to make it easy in that regard.
Joe looked at me seriously and asked one last question: "So, it's quite possible that everything that's happening isn't natural, right? After all, that drone… What did you find out about it in the future?"
"There were many theories about the apocalypse…
Rick paused, looking at the red sky, and continued.
…The red clouds were the cause, creating the collapse of technology and giving rise to the ZY virus. That was the most popular one. The colonization ships left for the new solar system in fear of the new pandemic, and we were left behind."
"I'm not a scientist, but I've always heard about climate problems, so it makes sense," Joe said.
"As for the other theories… They involved a lot of creativity and absurd conspiracies, it's better not to worry about that now…"
Joe then nodded, understanding that I didn't want to talk about it anymore, he remained silent, not asking any more questions…
"Come on, Joe, show me Pineview Village. I want to see what you guys have been up to in the last seven days, and I want to know how you became a level 2 mutant. But before that, we should visit your father, right?"
Joe's eyes widened and filled with tears as he tried hard not to cry. He then asked: "Can you cure him?"
"I think so, let's take a look at his situation first…"