M42 groaned as he walked back to his hotel room. MB42 was driving him insane with his constant niggling. It seemed MB42 blamed the Major for what had happened with his career, which M42 thought was complete and utter rubbish, but it didn’t change the fact that his old Major was trying to make his life very, very difficult.
Team 42 had been in the Great Nations for three weeks now, and there had been two incidents. The first one was due to external forces – someone had left a dodgy explosive at one of the three train stations. Thankfully the place had been evacuated and a shield from Tytus minimised any damage.
The second incident had been influenced by the first incident, but had been completely internal. During the debriefing after the bomb scare, M42 had made the error of congratulating Tytus on his work in securing the area. Without giving M42 a second to continue, MB42 had gone on a tirade about favouritism and why didn’t the Major congratulate 07-42 for finding the bomb in the first place? It would have been fine except for the snide remark MB42 made about the relationship between the Major and 24-42, which had enraged Alexis and Daniel who went for MB42 and were only stopped by 04-42 and 11-42. If it hadn’t been for the dinner bell going, it would have been an all-out war.
M42 swiped his keycard and walked into his room. Sighing, he pulled off his shirt and flopped face first onto his bed. That was two days ago. He had to find a way to fix things before they got out of control. 24-42 might have the nastiest temper, but at least hers took a bit of work to bring out. Alexis and Daniel however could have hair-trigger tempers, and with Tytus being the arrogant so-and-so that he is needling the members of Team B42 so that they baited Team A42 and…ARGH!
There was a loud knock on the door, which is what the Major DIDN’T need.
“It had better be room service.” He muttered to himself, pulling his shirt back on. He opened the door to see 24-42 standing there.
“Hi.” She smiled.
“Hmph.” The Major grumbled, letting her into his room. It was against his better judgement, but he was a bit beyond caring at this point.
“The guys are sorry about what happened earlier.” 24-42 said as M42 pulled off his shirt again and resumed his position on the bed. “Uh…are you okay Sir?”
“No.” Was the muffled reply.
“It’s only two-and-a-bit more months.” 24-42 tried to cheer him up, sitting next to him on the bed and rubbing his back.
“Not helping.” The Major rolled over onto his back and held out his arms. Wordlessly, 24-42 happily melted into his embrace. They spent a good five minutes simply kissing each other, enjoying the brief calm that they were afforded.
“We shouldn’t be doing this.” M42 tried to pull away.
“Care factor?” 24-42 kissed his nose. “You need a break anyway.”
“True.” M42 let his head fall back onto the bed.
“After we get home we can go to the beach for a day and not have to worry about anything.” 24-42 said hopefully.
“Yeah…I’ll probably have a mountain of paperwork though.” M42 sighed.
“Paperwork can wait.” 24-42 poked him. M42 nearly came back with a retort, when a loud banging outside jolted them both.
“What on earth is going on?!” M42 grabbed his shirt again and ran to the window. Outside, Tytus and 05-42 were wrestling while the other Experiments shouted obscenities at each other.
“Damn it!” M42 pulled on his shirt and headed for the door. “You go back to your room and STAY there, I don’t need you getting into a fight!” He barked at 24-42, who looked put-out. She sighed and went back to her room.
M42 bolted down the stairs and headed out to the pool area where things were getting heated between the two teams.
“What is going on here?!” M42 yelled angrily.
“They started it!” Alexis cried.
“I don’t care! I’m finishing it!” M42 roared, shoving the two wrestling Experiments into the pool. “All of you, to your rooms NOW and I don’t want to see you again until dinner!”
“Losing control a bit, aren’t you Experiment?” MB42 smirked as the other Experiments glowered at each other before heading off.
“Shut up. If you’re not going to help, then shut up.” M42 growled threateningly. MB42 knew that M42 could easily rip him to shreds, so he walked off, grumbling to himself.
“You okay Sir?” Suzie stood beside the Major.
“No. No I’m not. I’m getting nothing but trouble from those who I’m supposed to manage and NO support from up above. How am I supposed to handle it?!” M42 put his face in his hands.
Suzie sighed. This mission was slowly turning into a disaster. It was a huge test of M42s leadership, and if he failed it was highly likely he’d be replaced.
M42 knew this. He didn’t want to lose this position. It was a permanent position that would see him taken care of for life, not to mention a high-prestige position.
“You’ll find a way. Especially if it means staying with 24-42.” Suzie grinned cheekily.
M42 glared at her, and she scarpered. So what if he wanted to stay with 24-42, at least she’d taken the time to get to know him.
From her room balcony, 24-42 had seen the whole thing. She sighed and frowned. Getting along with Team B42 wasn’t easy, but the constant fighting was causing the Major some severe headaches. Thankfully though, 24-42 had been through enough therapy in the past six months to know how to keep herself in line. It was getting the others to chill out too that would be the ultimate challenge.
“Now…S42 told me about seeing things from other perspectives. B42 thinks that because they’re not as strong or as capable as us, they need to stand up to us to not be pushed around. I think MB42 is pushing that narrative as well. Maybe the history between him and M42? Hmmm.” 24-42 began to pace up and down. “How do I get everyone on the same page?”
Then she remembered her cold, evil temper. Her cold, evil, SCARY temper.
“Nah, I can’t do that. Not to my teammates. Not after everything they’ve done for me over the past year and a bit.” She flopped on the bed. “Although I AM much stronger when I get to that point.”
24-42 looked at her hand. She tried to get it to glow red, but it wouldn’t. Instead, a green hue took over.
“Huh…when I’m calm my power goes green?” She sat up. The urge to test out this new power was strong, but she’d been confined to her room, which didn’t have much room to blow stuff up in. Plus her hand was starting to hurt with the exertion.
“Maybe if I just use less power…” 24-42 looked at her hand again and tried to lower the power. It went back to red!
24-42 stood up. The power in her hand vanished. She frowned and made it turn red again. Then, while focusing on her power, she carefully began walking around the room, trying to keep the hand from going out. That experiment was stopped when she bashed her hip into the table.
But there was potential. 24-42 lit up her hand again. What COULD she do with her power? She tried to send it out slowly, like Henna had done with the cave in when she created the drill. The power pooled in her hand. She wondered if she could make it solid. Sure enough, the pool solidified in her hand.
“Hmm.” 24-42 sat down again. Just then there was a knock at the door, so 24-42 put her musings aside and opened it.
“We’ve been told to patrol.” 01-42 was at the door.
“Sure.” 24-42 grabbed her key and closed the door behind her. “Just us two?”
“Yeah, just us.” 01-42 said shortly.
24-42 felt the anger start to simmer. She took a breath.
“I’ll just follow you then. Hopefully something good for dinner when we get back.” 24-42 tried to start some conversation.
01-42 eyed her warily.
“Look, we know there’s a bit of drama between our teams, but there doesn’t have to be.” 24-42 blurted out. “Why can’t we be friends?”
“With you, who think you’re better than us?” 01-42 snapped.
“Well, most of us can Blast and fly…” 24-42 replied sheepishly.
“Whatever.” 01-42 stalked off.
24-42 felt slapped, which just added fuel to the anger. But I can’t get angry. I have to stick to the facts.
“Can you Blast?” 24-42 asked.
“Yes.” 01-42 replied.
“What colour is your Blast?” 24-42 suddenly had a thought.
“Clear.” 01-42 replied.
“Do any of your teammates have different coloured Blasts?”
“What do YOU care?”
“I can change the colour of my Blasts.”
“And that affects me how?”
“Maybe you can change yours too?”
“Piss off.”
24-42 had to swallow back the anger again.
But it was simmering. Slowly but surely it was simmering, and 24-42 couldn’t hold back her nature forever.
–
“I don’t know why you even bothered with them, they’re useless and they know it.” Tytus said as the pair walked together on patrol later on, under strict orders to stay away from Team B42.
“They’re still our coworkers, and we have to live with them for the rest of our lives.” 24-42 pointed out. “I think a fair few of us forget that this is a permanent thing, there’s no quitting or getting fired.”
“I try not to think about it.” Tytus sighed. “You didn’t lose your temper though, so huge improvement!”
“Oh it’s simmering away nicely. I’ll blow eventually.” 24-42 tried to laugh it off, but there was no denying that if things kept on the way they were, she’d lose it again and who knows what kind of damage she’d do.
Tytus studied her. “No. I think you’ll be fine. You’ve worked really, really hard at it after all.”
“Why are you being so nice? You’re usually a weasel!” 24-42 poked him. “I am SO telling everyone you were nice.”
Tytus didn’t say anything, he just looked towards the base they were supposed to protect. “Something seems off about things. That bomb I found – I’ve seen ones like it before. This isn’t another country that’s causing this threat, so I don’t know why we’re even here.”
“You what now?” 24-42 asked.
“Nevermind, forget I said anything.” Tytus shrugged her off.
24-42 couldn’t let it go though. Especially as it was Titus, who had made it extremely clear he was not to be trusted. Or had he? 24-42 remembered how he’d stayed with her on the plane ride after she’d nearly killed the Major.
She decided to let Tytus be.