Mod Superhero (Book 6 STUBBING on Oct 27th)

Chapter 6.16 - Am I dreaming?

TIMESTAMP ERROR DETECTED

APPROXIMATE DATE — UNCONFIRMED

PRE-INCIDENT OR POST-INCIDENT — UNCONFIRMED

Emmett walked the abandoned streets with his head down. He was heading back to the lab with planks of wood under his arm.

Most of the apartments had been ransacked or trashed, but he'd found one room that held what he was looking for. A guest bedroom in a tucked away apartment. The walls were covered with half wood paneling. Most of them were gouged or broken, but Emmett had found five that were pristine and four more that would be good enough for woodburning. Hopefully she could join them together and make a regular sized canvas.

There was poetry in that—tearing down something old to make something new.

A few minutes later, Emmett arrived at the secret dumpster entrance to the lab. He clutched the boards nervously and used his whip to pull open the dumpster facade. Nanites manipulated the blast door lock and then Emmett slipped inside and down the stairs.

He went all the way to the small dormitory. It wasn't very big to start, and TINA had used excess nanites to divide up the rooms into living quarters for the team. By the time everything was partitioned, each room was barely big enough for a bed—which meant Athena had the smallest room, and Lock's was roughly the same size as Emmett and Clara's combined room.

Emmett was going to poke his head into Lock and Athena's rooms to see if they were there, but he sensed where they were through his connection to TINA. They were both in the demiplane—Lock sparring with nanite training dummies, and Athena working on expanding the demiplane itself. Emmett walked over to his and Clara's room.

The door was a glorified partition made out of nanites. It just didn't sound the same knocking on the door, so he knocked on the doorframe.

Clara replied, "Hey... You can come in. "

Emmett pushed through the nanite partition. There hadn't been enough furniture to go around, so TINA recycled the little bit there was. That, along with extra raw material, had given her enough to make furniture for everyone out of nanites. There was a small cot, just big enough for the two of them side by side, along with two small end tables for personal items.

Clara was hunched over on the bed with a nanite blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She was doodling on one of her metal spheres.

"TINA told me you were back..." Clara looked up and trailed off. A smile crept across her face. "Are those...?"

"For you? Yeah. I finally found—"

Clara leapt up and wrapped her arms around him. The sphere and the boards clattered to the floor. Emmett hugged her back.

"These were the best ones I could find," Emmett said sheepishly.

"They're perfect. Thank you."

Clara stooped and gathered the boards up. Emmett recounted where he'd found them, but it seemed like Clara was only half-listening. Then she picked a board and sat on the edge of the bed with it across her lap.

Emmett asked, "You're not going to join the boards together and make a canvas?"

"No. I'll draw something that will fit the canvas. We have to work with what we have."

Clara concentrated for a moment as she rubbed her fingertips together. She was channeling heat into them—a process that she concentrated even more on since she'd started using her new thinsuit attachments.

"Grab a canvas," Clara said.

Emmett held up his hands. "Oh no. They're for you—"

"And I want you one. Come on." Clara patted the bed beside her. "TINA told me about the new mod you made."