A New Infection

Chapter 5

"Hurry up!" Bella was getting impatient. Sensing her rising temper and not willing to push his luck, Freddie grudgingly set down his laptop and followed her up the stairs to the main part of the house.

After Bella's insistence, Freddie had agreed to join her scavenging for more materials. She argued that they needed food, even though they had seven cans of food and four eggs, which would last them another two to three days, maybe five if they rationed. It might be hard to ration, since, despite it only being approximately 24 hours since he last had a hot meal, the warm canned food was oddly tasty. But no, apparently it was better to search with full stomach, than when they got desperate.

The intellectual side of him knew she was right, but it was hard to tear himself away from his research, especially because of the stakes - saving the world was a big deal. He sighed and trotted up the rest of the stairs, spotting Bella waiting at the top, tapping her foot.

"Finally," she said, grunting as she pushed the cabinet that masked the secret entrance back into place. They made their way to the front door, Bella tapping the device she was yet to share about before pushing the cabinet away and swinging the remains of the door open. Bella pulled out her phone, which was miraculously still charged.

"There's a tech repair shop near here. They generally throw out stuff they find too tricky to fix. Luckily for us, technology and programming are my strong suits, I surpass almost all adults."

Freddie snorted.

Bella rolled her eyes, "People don't have to go to a fancy school to be smart. I could have if I wanted to..." she paused, watching Freddie roll his eyes at her proclamations. "You know what?" she continued, "I'm not even going to fight this battle since you won't believe me until you see proof." Freddie paused, mid scoff, surprised she could read him that well. "Yeah, that's right," she said triumphantly, "I know how you think because I think similarly. The only difference is I listen and gather more evidence before brushing off people's claims. I prefer a more open-minded approach. Besides, even if I wasn't so observant, I'd know anyway. You're incredibly easy to read, you're an open book."

Thoroughly trumped, Freddie was silent the rest of the trip to the technology shop. As the pair walked through the streets, he was surprised by how at ease Bella was. Freddie himself was constantly glancing around, watching in case the pair was ambushed, something that happened frequently before he found the bunker. After that, he scarcely left the basement, other than to scout the streets from one of the bedrooms, since he was too scared to go out again, in case he was attacked. Not that he'd ever admit that.

Finally arriving at the repair shop, instead of going into it, Bella went through an alleyway beside the building, blinking sporadically as she went. Unlike alleys he'd read about in history books, this one was sleek and only used for discarding the technology repair shop's scraps. There were two dumpsters at the end of the alley, sleek and grey, one about half full and the other completely overflowing. Next to the pair of dumpster bins was a pile of cracked phones, computers split in two and other tragic cases that almost hurt Freddie's heart. Almost, seeing as his strong suit was more chemistry inclined than programming.

Bella gasped in excitement, "Oh my... look at all this! And to think people threw this away! Well, better for us." She dove into the pile on the floor, wading through the busted technology. Her breath hitched suddenly. "Freddie," her voice was tight, for a reason Freddie didn't understand. He dismissed his ignorance. People had never been his strong suit. "Can you look in one of the dumpsters? I'll give you a boost."

There didn't seem to be any room to disagree with her tone, so Freddie shrugged and walked over to the girl standing shin-deep in tech. He grabbed the lip of the bin and felt a push from below, hoisting him successfully into the bin. Too successfully. He tumbled in, landing on his back, one of his arms touching the bottom of the container. He righted himself, almost losing his balance and tumbling further into the pile, as the contents of the dumpster shifted around him.