Genetix

7-Trixie

Pete and I stand in the garage. The others have already dispersed, but Pete is still glowering at the pile of dead bodies. The drones have cleared many of them away, but it takes several drones to lift one creature, and it's slow going. We stand in silence for several minutes until he finally turns away.

"Get some of the guys to stand guard for the survivors," he orders.

"Wait, what?" I grab his arm. "Why?"

He yanks away. "Jakob doesn't bring people home out of the kindness of his heart."

The thought makes me pause, but then another eases my conscience. "Yeah, but he doesn't carry comatose dames across the desert, either. Maybe he's changed."

Pete snorts. "People never change, Trix. And whatever we are, we certainly don't." He storms off into the elevator and closes the door behind him, nearly snipping off the end of my nose. What a jerk. Still, he has a point about Jakob. Better safe than sorry, right? Even if it is less fun...

"Computer authorization 8704, contact Dean and Velma," I command the intercom. I'm the only one who bothered to learn all the access codes. Even that hyper psycho Maya only knows about half of them. Soon their voices ring out through the garage.

"Hey, Trix"

"What do you want?"

"Glad to hear from you too, Velma. Pete wants some guards on the new arrivals. I need you to head for the hospital wing, keep an eye on them and Jakob."

Velma scoffs. "Why should I care about some normals?"

"Just do it," I snap, making sure to let an unspoken threat leak into my voice. The others might not like me, and I don't mind, but they will obey me.

"Fine." The intercom clicks as she breaks the connection.

"Anything for you babe," Dean says.

"I'm not your babe."

"Of course not."

"Computer, end transmission."

Idiot. I kiss him one time when we were kids to make Pete jealous, and now I'll never hear the end of it. I sigh and call another elevator. A drone accompanies me, and I send it to bring some food and water to Pete. I'm not about to forgive him that easily for snubbing me, or else I would bring it myself. As an afterthought I call back the drone and send a nasty audio message too. Maybe I'll sleep in one of the spare rooms tonight, see how he likes sleeping alone.

Instead, I find myself going down to the basement. Technically the entire building is a basement, but we call the lowest level the basement anyways. I wipe a bead of sweat from my forehead. The air conditioning is always on full blast down here, but the depth combined with the heat from the generator leaves this place broiling. The generator itself is massive, a circular metal structure forty feet high and fifty feet in diameter. The only two people weird enough to hang out down here, Brandy and Michael, are both extremely crazy, and are biologically brother and sister. If not for that little detail I would have assumed they spent all their time screwing each other. Velma and Harry would be displeased with their mates, except Harry is dead and Velma is fine with using whatever substitute she can find to take Michael's place. I'm not ashamed to admit I've shared a bed with her once or twice, with or without Pete there as well.

Here's Brandy now. She brushes past me, muttering something about "nuclear flux" or something and checking a dial on the machine. Personally, I think all the time she spends down here has fried her brain. Right after the science boys took off, she chopped off all her hair and started wearing a heavy leather apron and work gloves. I look around to see Michael asleep on a beat up couch in the corner... damn it. Brandy is the weirder of the two, and I want to ask about the cart battery problem, preferably from someone I can actually understand.

"Hey, Brandy!" I yell over the clanging of the generator. Brandy jumps as if she hadn't noticed me, but she brightens up almost immediately.

"The nuclear flux is off the charts!" she yells, pointing at a screen.

"Yeah, great. Can you come upstairs for a minute?" I call. She tilts her head thoughtfully, then nods. We head back up in the elevator and the clanging fades, but I still can't hear anything over the ringing in my ears.

We take the elevator all the way back up to the garage, and I'm relieved to see the drones have finished cleaning up the pile of infected. I walk over to the cart and pull out the solar panel and its accompanying wires.

"We can't go outside for long enough to charge a cart with a normal solar panel, and I was wondering if you could rig this to charge from the generator."

Brandy snatches the panel out of my hands and holds it centimeters from her face. "Solar sheet, generation two-point-two, microflex cells. Can I rig it? Hm.... Maybe if I... hm... I need some things, special things for it." She pulls a notepad and pen from her pocket, scribbles something, and hands it to me.

"What the hell is this?" I ask. I am looking at a picture of a box with some lines coming out of it.

"It's special," Brandy declares proudly. "A special thing for a special project."

I shove the paper back at her, anger and frustration filling my belly. "This isn't special, Brandy, it's nothing!" I yell, not waiting for her to explain. "If you can't make sense for once then don't waste my time!" I snatch back the solar panel and storm back to the elevator, leaving Brandy with a shocked look.