The Wasteland That Was Earth

3: Wasteland

Sighing loudly to herself, Mika glanced down at her watch, the glass cracked and the black strap reattached with glue, the mechanisms inside were somehow miraculously still working, even after all the years of damage. It had been her father's watch, given to her about a month before he left with his new lover.
Leaving her mother to fall into a deep, endless hole of despair, whirring her pain into action, causing all the struggles they had to endure with one, heartless move. Her sister barely knew him. She wanted to hate him. Her mother wanted her to hate him.
But she could never quite bring herself to.

Now, after surviving his entire childhood, his marriage, his two daughters, their divorce and even the end of the world, that brilliant watch had been delegated to one thing.

Telling her that the fool known as Clay was already two whole minutes late.

The others were ready, stood primed for action, each of them facing the door and eagerly awaiting their new teammate's arrival.

She had given him specific instructions. It was already going to take extra time to teach him to use his new gear and that boy had the nerve, nay, the audacity the show up late after she had told him the precise time he had to be ready?

Three minutes.

Three minutes now wasted. If it weren't for him, they would have all been out in the Wasteland by now, actually making an impact on the world, actually applying their skills to make life easier for the other students.
Instead, they were stood in the hall like a cavalcade of eager trainee's. They looked exactly as they had the day they had first begun training, searching for the most able-bodied students to embark on such tedious journeys after the last group had been taken away by the headmaster.

Explorers like them shouldn't have been standing around, they didn't spend a moment staying still, didn't waste a second of their time. Every breath could be spent teaching a child a valuable lesson, each step taken could be towards a brilliant destination, each moment wasted could have been used to get her closer to out of that place.
Closer to becoming a real soldier, far away from that accursed school.

Finally, heavy footsteps echoed down the corridors in rapid succession until Clay at last skid around the corner, his tie done incorrectly and one of his shoelaces untied.

He waved his arms like a fool, steadying his pace to a stop before Mika and panting heavily.
"...did I...make it?"
He gasped, bending down with his hands on his knees.

Mika sighed again, the groups' eyes were all on her. She had to act like the true leader she knew she was.

Stepping forward, she pulled Clay up until he stood straight, yanking on his tie and fixing it for him.

"You are exactly three minutes and forty-eight seconds late. I gave you a set time and you failed to meet it. Should this happen again, we will not wait for you. That is, if you are deemed worthy of coming on another expedition."
With a final tug, she patted down his now perfect tie and returned to her position by the door.

"But, three minutes? Hey, come on, that's pretty good for my first time, right?"

He just had to keep pushing, couldn't leave anything be.

Mika scanned her card, throwing the door open and the other students charged inside. Clay attempted to follow behind, but she reached out her arm, stopping him just before he entered the greenhouse.

"What's your surname?"
She asked, blankly.

"What?"

"We don't use first names on expeditions, a rule set by the headmaster. So I'll ask again, what is your surname?"