24-42 scowled, her eye blackening fast. Tytus and Daniel were ropeable, both sporting lumps on their heads. Alexis was nursing her sore shoulder and the red mark on Hennas face was definitely going to bruise.
“Slimey weasels…” Alexis fumed.
Team A42 had just been on the end of a very nasty ambush from Team B42 as they tried to get to one of the training grounds that morning. Now they were sitting in M42’s office waiting to get reamed.
“I can’t believe C42 won’t do anything about it! How can they get away with this?!” Suzie was fuming. “You guys have EVERY right to use the facilities, they’re not just for them, and they have no right to attack you every time you try to use them!”
“We did get to use it in the end though.” Tytus grinned cheekily. “We won the fight again!”
“Wonderful.” Suzie scowled dryly as M42 walked in.
“She didn’t want to hear about it. And neither do I.” He said, which instantly started the protesting.
“You’re supposed to be our leader!”
“If you won’t listen to us, who will we go to?!”
“I always knew you were a flake!”
“ENOUGH.” The Major sat down at his desk. “I’m not going to hear about it because YOU are going to deal with it.”
“Oh really?” Henna snapped. “And how are we going to do that?”
“The same way you handled me.” M42 shuffled some of the papers on his desk. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”
The team forwarded out, 24-42 looking to linger until the Major mentioned, “That includes you too 24-42.”
She poked her tongue out at him and left in a huff. The Major had a little chuckle to himself. So cute when she was mad!
–
“You’re kidding me, right?” Alexis looked at the door.
“I think it’s clever.” Henna gave the cling wrap that blocked the door a light poke.
“Why did WE have to be dragged out of bed at this hour when you two CLEARLY had everything under control?!” 24-42 hissed, thinking of her warm bed with her cats.
“I didn’t think you were with the Major tonight.” Tytus raised an eyebrow cheekily.
“I wasn’t! I just appreciate a good nights sleep!” 24-42 went bright red.
“We’re a team. We do these things together as a team.” Daniel said sternly. “We’ve had a rocky start but now I think we’re really starting to pull together.”
“Some more than others.” Alexis nudged Henna, who giggled.
24-42 rolled her eyes.
“Anyway, they’re all in this wing, so if we trigger the alarm for this wing only, it should be hilarious.” Tytus smirked.
“You come up with all sorts of wonderful plans don’t you?” Alexis grinned at him.
“I try.” Tytus couldn’t help but grin back.
“1B-42, can you sound the alarm?” Daniel gently whispered to the supercomputer.
“Only for this-,” Tytus started, but it was too late. The whole base erupted in wailing sirens.
“Quick, let’s skedaddle!” Henna began to run.
As they ran, they couldn’t help but look back. Just about all of team B42 had been caught in the trap and were now either wrapped in cling wrap, on their backsides or both.
–
“24-42! YOU HAVE TO STOP THIS!” M42 cried, running away from a falling building.
“24-42! Please!” Henna tried to pull herself out from a pile of rubble.
“We didn’t think you were like this!” Tytus was surrounded on all four sides by burning rubble, unable to escape.
“24-42!”
HE screamed.
“STOP IT!” Screamed 24-42, nearly falling out of bed the next morning.
“24-42! Are you okay?” M42 was leaning over her, gripping her arms tightly. “It was just a nightmare.”
24-42 began to cry. It didn’t feel like just a nightmare.
M42 felt a little lost. He loosened his grip on her arms and tried to hug her properly. Even when he’d been married he hadn’t been very good at comforting people.
“Don’t!” 24-42 pushed him away. “You’re not him.”
“You’re upset and irrational, maybe you should have some water.” M42 got out of bed and went to fetch 24-42 a drink, leaving the shaken Experiment to her thoughts.
I put that all behind me. I put HIM behind me. The Major is my future now. She thought, trying to rid herself of the old emotions that now seemed stronger than ever.
But try as she might, as much as she was attracted to the Major she just couldn’t muster up those same emotions for him. She was angry at herself for her misplaced loyalty, upset by the nightmare and tired from all the strain.
“Here.” M42 sat down next to her, handing her a glass of water. He was holding it in his cybernetic hand, she noticed. Taking the glass and sipping the contents slowly, she ran her fingers along the cold silicone.
“Can you feel anything?” She asked quietly.
He looked away. “I wouldn’t call it feeling.” He admitted. He raised the hand and stroked her face with one cold cybernetic finger. She put her drink down and covered the metallic hand with her own natural warm one, and reached out to his human hand with the other, grateful that both her hands were her own.
“I’m sorry I snapped at you before.” She whispered, looking down.
“So you should be.” He replied, just as quietly. 24-42 looked up at him, and for a brief moment M42 thought he saw faint traces of hurt on her face.
24-42 chuckled quietly, reaching out to hug the Major and to snuggle into his body.
“I never got to ask you why you were out at the evac point before everyone else last night.” M42 suddenly remembered the events from the previous night. After the entire staff had been dismissed after the false alarm, the Major had headed back to 24-42s lodgings and spent the rest of the night with her.
“Uhm…” 24-42 didn’t quite know how to answer that question. She breathed a premature sigh of relief as there was a knock at her door.
“COMING!” She quickly scrambled into her dressing gown and opened the door. The Major shrugged with a grin and lay back down on the bed.
“Oh my GOD wasn’t that funny last night?” Alexis burst in, followed closely by Tytus and Daniel. 24-42 tried to silence her as she continued loudly. “I can’t believe they fell for it!”
“Fell for what?” M42 poked his head out of 24-42s bedroom.
The colour drained from the four Experiments faces.
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear it then.” The Major closed the bedroom door.
“You could’ve TOLD me that he was here!” Alexis hissed angrily.
“You didn’t give her a chance, you big mouth!” Daniel snapped.
“I can still hear you guys y’know!” Came the shout from 24-42s room.
“Anyway.” Tytus recovered first. “MB42 went to C42 and had a huge whinge.”
“And C42 told him to take a hike, that his team should be ready for anything.” Alexis finished. “HZF3615-42 overheard MB42 having a fit about it while she was out having brunch with TDH5634-42.”
“Wow, so Team B42 is getting – wait, I thought HZF3615-42 was screwing RVB4587-42?” 24-42 looked confused.
“Until she found him in bed with ZZST5609-42.” Daniel shrugged.
“Wow.” 24-42 said, shocked.
“Apparently MB42 brought up your relationship with the Major too.” Alexis said, worried.
“I wouldn’t be too concerned, she’s had plenty of inappropriate relationships in her career!” The Major called.
“You’d know about that how?” Tytus couldn’t help but ask.
“Ask H42!”
“ANYWAY. We just thought we’d let you know what was going on. We’re going to spend today in the gym, care to join us?” Daniel recovered first.
“Umm…we’ll catch up with you later I think.” 24-42 smiled, turning pink. “See yas!”
She quickly shoved the others out the door and locked it behind them.
To think less than fifteen minutes earlier she’d been worried about some stupid nightmare. 24-42 giggled to herself, before heading back to the bedroom to give M42 what was coming to him.
Not that he minded.
–
“I have NO idea WHAT the Major is talking about.” Suzie denied M42s claim as she walked with 24-42, Henna and Daniel to one of the labs.
“You sure? Your face is red.” Henna asked cheekily.
“Hold your tongue Experiment!” Suzie snapped angrily.
“Yup! Definitely hit a nerve!” Daniel grinned.
“So what’s the big secret?” 24-42 asked as they headed up one of the escalators.
“THERE IS NO SECRET!” Suzie growled, making the three Experiments chuckle.
“All right then, have it your way…weren’t we going up?” Henna noticed that the group was now standing at the bottom of the escalator.
“Yeah…silly us!” Suzie shrugged. They moved over to the other escalator, and started heading up again.
“I don’t know why you’re so defensive Suzie, you know us.” Daniel continued the conversation.
“I’m not defensive!” Suzie snapped.
“You guys realise that next month it’s going to be a full year since the Exposure?” 24-42 suddenly realised, earning her a grateful look from Suzie.
“Wow, it’s gone by so fast!” Henna wondered. “We should have a party or something.”
“That’d be fun. I’ll talk to C42 about it.” Suzie grinned, thankful for the Experiments short attention spans.
“And someone is screwing with the escalators, we’re down the bottom again.” 24-42 looked up to the top of the escalators.
“Well, that’s no issue given three of us can fly.” Daniel pointed out.
The looks on the faces of the members of Team B42 when Daniel, Henna and 24-42 came flying over the top of them were priceless!
“WAIT!” Suzie screamed after them, running as fast as she could to keep up.
“Well, that went well.” 04-42 scowled at 20-42, who shrugged in defeat.