Hurricane // Danger Days (Book 2)

25.

Storm stepped off of the ladder and into the Nest, and he nearly started getting emotional. Everything was just the same as when he had left, and when he had first arrived in the desert.

"Okay guys," Alien addressed the group. "We know a couple of things. Number one: the Riot knows all of BLI HQ's weaknesses now. We kind of cut off their supply, now that they don't have Storm anymore, but they got enough to stage a full-blown attack. Number two: they're gonna do it soon. Tomorrow, if not today. Rampage placed some trackers on their vehicles, and Revolution put one in Grenade Shock's jacket. We should know if their army moves out. When they start going, we have to as well. We have to be prepared. It'll take them at least an hour to prepare everything, but we have to work even harder than them if we want to beat them. Got it?"

There was a chorus of affirmatives.

"Good," she smiled. "Cola, I want you to set up our broadcasting station. I want to send a message to every Killjoy gang in the Zones. I'll call Dr. D so he can transmit my message through his radio station. Rev and Rampage, gather every person you see and grab all of the weapons we have. Load them all onto every vehicle in sight. Sunset, grab all of the medics and help them put their supplies in the vehicles. Let's do this! Go, go go!"

Everyone ran off in different directions, except Storm. "Al, what's my assignment?" he asked. "You never gave me one."

Alien smiled up at him. "Dude, you've been through a lot today. You need to rest."

"But I want to help! I need to help!"

"I know I'm never gonna be able to keep you away from this battle, so at least calm down until then. Okay?"

Storm sighed. "I guess I can't argue with you. What should I do instead?"

Alien grinned. "I thought of that. There's a surprise for you on your cot downstairs. Anyways, I've gotta go handle this, see ya in hell!" She turned around and jogged to her office, waving as she ducked inside.

Storm stood in silence for a moment. He exhaled, then turned around slowly. He was so glad to be back at the Nest.

He was glad to be home.

He sighed, then proceeded down the stairs to the living quarters. He maneuvered his way through the cots and past people who were mingling with their cot neighbors until he reached the double cot that he had shared with Poison. There was indeed something on it. He got a bit closer.

It was a pile of clothes, all neatly folded. The first thing he noticed was a light blue denim vest, and underneath that was a familiar gray shirt with the words 'STORM CHASER' emblazoned on the front. He smiled when he realized that Alien kept his old clothes. He noticed that there were two boxes behind the clothes as well. With a closer look, he saw that one was hair bleach, and the other was icy blue hair dye.

Oh thank Destroya, he thought, if I didn't have this, I'd never hear the end of the IKEA jokes from Revolution.

Storm scooped up all of the items and headed straight to the bathrooms adjacent to the quarters. Choosing one at random (gender-assigned bathrooms were pointless at this point) he entered it and closed the door behind him.

Knowing that he was just going to throw away his Hurricane outfit anyway, he didn't bother putting a towel over his shoulders. He just removed his jacket and opened the box with the bleach in it.

Okay, so how does this work? He turned the box over, but all of the instructions were in Japanese, like a lot of things these days. However, he remembered nearly nothing from his high school Japanese courses. Okay then. Well, I have seen Al do this... you know what? I'm just gonna improvise. He took the small plastic bowl out of the box and mixed the substances from the two tubes together in it. Then he simply scooped it into his hands and shoved it into his hair.