Gear Crash

Chapter 10

"So, are you gonna spill, or am I gonna have to pick your brains off the pavement?" Simon stood in front of Sophia, still pointing his gun at her."

"Back off her!" Kyle yelled, running forwards. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Simon's hand shot up, blocking Kyle by force. It caught Kyle off guard, and he stumbled backwards.

"Speak. Now!" Simon glared at Sophia.

"It's alright Kyle, I understand where Simon's coming from. You might want to sit down, because this is going to be a long, long story." And so they sat down, and Sophia told them the tale of The Scourge. 

The Scourge's background was, like any good villain, completely shrouded in mystery. Some said that he practiced the demonic arts, and came from a cult in India. Some said that he was from the 19th century, and had found the secret to never aging. Nevertheless, all the stories had one thing in common : his incredible powers. The Scourge was said to be able to possess anyone at will, just by touching them. He was also able to turn into smoke, allowing for greater movement and flight.

"But what did any of this have to do with you?" Kyle asked, quizzically. Sophia sighed, then looked up with tired eyes.

"I'm what you call a mercenary. The Scourge hired me to distract you guys, to make sure his plans could go uninterrupted. I was supposed to lure you in, to get you guys away from the lab so he could" And she dropped her eyes, unable to keep eye contact anymore. Simon and Kyle stared, both astonished at Sophia's confession.

"You mean this whole time you've been working against us?" Simon shouted, his face red with anger. He stood up, and started yelling. "We trusted you with everything! You were supposed to be our friend!" He pulled his gun out again. "Get away from here. I never want to see you again." 

"Wait, Simon, no. Put the gun down NOW!" Kyle shouted back. Sophia's eyes welled up with tears.

"No Kyle, he's right. This is all my fault. I'll leave immediately. You'll never see me again."

"Good," Simon said, glaring daggers at her. "We don't want to." Sophia brushed her tears away, then stood up and started walking towards her car. She walked passed Kyle, and leaned into his ear.

"I'm sorry" She whispered, and gently brushed his hand. Then, she sprinted away. Simon looked away from her, no longer wearing a glare on his face, only a weary look of exhaustion.

"Well, we better start cleaning up. This is going to take a while." Kyle stared at him. "If you think I was too harsh, just say so. We're better off without that backstabbing ass on our team."

"I suppose so." said Kyle. He moved towards the wreckage of the lab. Things were going to be much more difficult without Sophia around.

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Rebuilding the lab was even more difficult than they had imagined. Nearly everything was completely destroyed except for the cells, so Kyle and Simon had to build it back up from scratch. Simon didn't know how Sophia could possibly have built this by herself. After five minutes on Google, it turned out that she hadn't. There was a rent-a-robot service called Insta-Building where one could hire a team of robotic builders to construct a building. It cost about 100-400 dollars, depending on the size of the structure. With a few quick calls and two easy installments of $59.99, the Lab was erected once again, and no longer a pile of rubble on the floor. However, their work was far from over. Although the general structure of the lab was rebuilt, the insides were now completely empty of anything. The next week or so was spent bringing in tables, painting the walls, and bringing the Lab back to it's original state, back when Kyle was the only one working in there. Simon carried in the last of the tables, and looked around. There was still a long way to go, as the computers still needed to be brought in, there still had to be a case to put Kyle's suit in, and the whole place looked extremely bland, but they had definitely made progress. He leaned on the table, then wiped the sweat off his forehead.

"Hey Kyle, I finished with the tables, wanna go someplace to eat? I hear there's a new sushi bar in town. It's called like, Sushiba or some stupid un-creative name like that. I don't care, I'm just hungry." Kyle looked over from where he was standing, right where he had just finished painting the walls.

"That sounds great, I'm starving. Let's go." The pair walked outside the Lab to Simon's car. He had just recently upgraded his old model to a new Honda Supreme. It looked like the old Honda Accord model, but there were some noticeable differences, such as the jet engines under the body of the car, and the automatic headlights. They drove the distance to the new restaurant, then sat down and ordered their lunch, Kyle getting a California Roll and Simon getting a salmon sashimi. 

"I wanted to talk with you about something," Kyle said hesitantly. 

"Shoot for it." Simon said, picking up the sushi with his chopsticks.

"I think we need Sophia back on the team, and -don't you spit that out now, that's a waste of sushi - before you turn me down, here's why. She's much better with robotics than us, she can help us clean up the lab faster, she's a huge help taking down criminals, and our team just isn't the same without her. I think we should track her down and bring her back." Simon eyed Kyle carefully.

"Wow, she really had you fooled, didn't she?" Suddenly, the boys heard a loud crashing sound. Kyle turned around just in time to see a group of people, all dressed in ski masks and black clothes burst through the window. "Can't I go ten minutes without having to knock some stupid robber dude's head off?" He pulled out his tranquilizer gun, and nodded his head at Kyle.

"Let's go!"