I'll Be There For You

MAVERICK

Year: 2342

Month: September

Date: 7

Destination: Northern part of Eastern Earth – Earth

Maverick knocked on Clive's door. He had woken up a few minutes ago. Maverick had inserted a stabilisation chip on his ankle that would alert him as to when Clive would wake up.

Phoenix opened the door and his eyes widened. Maverick, without being invited, pushed Phoenix aside and walked in.

Clive was standing on the bed, his hair wild with three broken pencils in his hand.

"What, pray tell, is going on here?"

"Why does he have a British accent?", Clive demanded.

Did the drug damage the guy's head?

"Clive, you genius, maybe because he is from here?", Phoenix replied.

Clive turned sharply towards his friend. "Don't talk to me! I'm not talking to you!"

Phoenix lifted his hands up in retreat.

"Ok settle down people. I need you to get down from that bed. I need you to take a shower. I need you to put on some clothes that don't stink and I need your ass out of this room in exactly 19 minutes."

A moment passed when the 2 of them just stared at Maverick.

"Why 19 minutes?", Clive asked him.

God this boy.

"Because. Now get going. You only have 18 minutes now."

He slammed the door shut.

Maverick didn't understand why Simon was so hell bent on getting these two. Actually, why he was so interested in Phoenix. Sure the kid did something no one else did. So? Give him a freaking party hat and a balloon. Not a damn position in the establishment. He held nothing against him. But Maverick had worked hard to reach where he was. He was only 16. But that hadn't stopped him. He was the head that dealt negotiations with the extra terrestrial politics.

Zeroa had wanted humans to get the hell out. So they did. But not without arrangements. In the mere three hours the people had survived on that planet, they had been productive.

The people already knew that Zeroa wouldn't welcome outsiders. They had never gone with the intention to colonize Zeroa. They just wanted the tech, the inside knowledge, the politics and ways of the Zeroans. So the scientists had installed cameras, sound recorders, video recorders and text recorders in places no one could have guessed. It was a cheap shot. But it had been working for over a 50 years now. And Maverick was the head of this wing. To analyse their moves, their actions, their language, their ways. Everything. He had formed his own little cloud.

And now a nobody was coming in to destroy it. He wouldn't let that happen.

He knew Phoenix wasn't going to kill Clive. But that's where Maverick came in. If he failed to do so, Maverick would be a little more than happy to put a bullet in his mouth. He smiled in anticipation.

***