Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

Hearing that Alexa’s unique talent couldn’t be performed on the stage with the lack of tools or props to use, it made me more curious as to what it was even though—from the top of my head—there would be a lot of things that couldn’t be done here in the first place. Anyhow, there was still a stark difference between a unique talent and a useful talent so at the end of the day, I was looking for something that could do both.

“Alexa?”

“Hmm? Oh! Right. I’m basically the Eyedropper Tool.”

Everyone else present muttered, “The what tool?”

But I was pleasantly surprised, “Shit. For real?”

Alexa replied with a faint smile, “Yep. I can grab a bit of paint over on the workshop to show you but using it aside from marking important places or covering scratched-up panels is a no-no.”

“That’s fucking amazing if it’s real—and I’m sure you wouldn’t lie about that—”

“Yep.”

“So— W-Why are you—”

Alexa slowly looked somber as she replied, “Enrolled in the Academy? What do you think? Just the benefits alone could—”

I never felt more stupid, “I understand that completely. It’s just—”

Quinn who was actually behind me suddenly chimed in, “Eyedropper what? What good does that do?”

My eyes lit up when I turned around and saw her, “Perfect! You’re here, I can give a good example.”

Quinn looked a little happy from my reaction before she asked, “A what now? You still haven’t answered what—”

“I’m getting to it! Okay… Quinn… With the nature of your work, your crew almost always deals with vehicular scratches, right?”

“Yeah?”

“Tell me, what’s the protocol for dealing with that?”

Quinn looked up for a moment as she scratched her head before she turned back to us, “Well~ I don’t do it myself but it depends on the scratch. Most of the time, simply buffing it or using some kits would do the trick but deep, deep scratches would need a new paint job after fixing dents or whatnot if the car was involved in a collision, had some damage from debris, or something similar…”

“Right. But let’s go to the paint job part. You guys have some samples like those strips with different color palettes in some kind of ring binder, right? Usually, you’d place it near the color you want to copy and compare— or just ask the client to pick from those and you have a machine to combine the colors for you.”

She nodded a few times, “Something like that.”

“Great. So… what if somehow someone lost that binder and you have no way of printing a new one—and you need to get the job done as soon as possible.”

“Easy. I’ll beat up and fire the one who lost the binder first—”

I almost chortled, “Ah— But w-what would you do now?”

“Shit~ I didn’t expect a quiz this early but I’ll probably do it by eye or ask the client to pick a new or similar color since he’s getting a new paint job anyway. The tricky part is if the client wants something exactly like the one they had before—even if it didn’t have to be matching against the other panels. But usually, they just opt to repaint the whole thing to save time and whatnot… Does that answer your question?”

“Yep. But here’s another one. What if you come across a person that could accurately identify what exactly the color she’s looking at by eye and mix it herself?”

Quinn didn’t even need a second to think, “Hmph. That’s easy, I’ll hire her on the spot with a high salary. I’ll probably even throw her a car in my collection if she could really do what you said.”

I chuckled as I pointed at Alexa, “Hire her then.”

Quinn threw Alexa a quick up-down look, “Hmm? For real? I mean—”

“W-What?!” Alexa exclaimed as everybody else did.

I chuckled at their reactions, “That’s what an Eyedropper Tool does— Well, technically~ it can identify whatever color you use it on, and in Photoshop, you’d be able to use that color afterward—”

Alexa interjected while shaking her head and looking at Quinn a certain way, “W-W-Wait, I’m just t-trying to come with Seb not—”

Quinn instantly exploded, “NOT WHAT, HUH?! THE FUCK ARE YOU TRYING TO— DID YOU JUST FUCKING HIT ME?!”

I quickly waved her off after retreating several steps, “Easy~ That jab’s like an egg hitting a rock, alright?! Won’t you reconsider—”

“RECONSIDER?! She’s not even interested in joining! I have strict requirements too!”

“Hah? Really? What are they?”

Quinn snapped her head to Alexa as she started to stare her down, “You.”

“Y-Y-Yes?”

“How much can you bench?”

“Ah— S-Seventy?”

Quinn never looked so confused, “Seventy-what? In each side or as a warm-up? Pounds or Kilos? That better be Kilos at the very least or I’ll be fucking disappointed.”

“Umm… Is it r-really that important?”

“…”

“H-Hello?”

I sneakily joined in the interview process, “T-That doesn’t matter in the position she’s applying for—”

“Shut up! I’m not talking to you! Doing 225 lbs for 15 like it’s nothing doesn’t matter for you—”

“I lifted you like it’s nothing though…”

“WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?!”

In a matter of seconds, our whole conversation went into several tangents but we soon went back on the topic of Quinn considering taking Alexa to her fold.

Essentially, the reason I’m doing this Academy’s Got Talent bullshit was to somehow bridge the gap between factions through connections formed and somehow save a few Tetris pieces that were getting shaved down to a shape to fit in something they shouldn’t be in the first place.

In Alexa’s case, she could be in a totally different place right now if she didn’t enroll in the academy because of money troubles though it did save her life nevertheless.

This point of thinking could go on a deep, deep hole but what’s important right now was that a new road opened up for her. She could try walking on a different path—or both—but in her case and the ones that were in the same boat as her, they should really think hard about making the choice because a chance like this one could only come once or a few times if they were extremely lucky.

I’m not implying that they’d have it better or easier in either of our wings because following your dreams or going for something you were made for wasn’t exactly a sure thing.

Some people had everything handed to them on a silver platter but they were neither doing their dream jobs nor walking on the path they were made for.

And again, this line of thinking could go on a deep, deep hole but what’s important was if the person was happy and content with what they have and achieved.

‘It’s different for each person but to me, it’s always about balance in the end…’

In any case, before I go into another tangent myself, my attention was caught by Kaley wearing a sun visor and a face mask, making her way towards me with Tatiana who was trying her hardest to not stifle a laugh. But yeah, I completely threw whatever plan she had by doing that out the window as I pulled her mask down and gave her a kiss when she was close enough.

And yeah, it lasted several Mississippis before we stopped and Seb and company were looking at us like it was the first time they saw a couple kiss.

Then Tatiana broke the ice, “No one’s teaching sex ed here? Is that why Lopez is doing shit to everybody?”

“…”

“…”

“…”

“Too soon?”

“Tatiana—”

“What? It happened to me when I was young, I could talk about it—”

“That’s not—”

“What?”

“Don’t make valid points, alright?! But yeah, I found our ace in the hole. They won’t have that Lopez problem sooner than they think?”

Seb interjected, “What do you mean?”

I let out an eerie smile, “It means what it means.”𝑶𝗏𝐋xt.𝗰𝑶𝓂

Seb couldn’t believe what he just heard, “You won’t just take him out the moment we’re out of this place’s influence, right? We can’t just leave him on the road for scraps, The General wouldn’t take that lightly.”

“Don’t worry, we probably have one next door and— Wait, what do you mean leave him on the road for scraps?”

He looked at me like I’m an idiot, “He’s… Lopez… He’s coming with us… right?”

“Are you asking me or telling me?”

Alexa joined in, “Lopez and JP, they’re… they’re required to be in close proximity at all times just in case anything happens and if there was ever a time either one of them goes out—mostly JP—the other is required to follow. It’s the golden rule, they’d probably send us a few bags of Lopez’s blood just in case too. The only exception was yesterday when you beat him up because his injuries needed to be taken care of.”

“Huh.”

“Yep.”

I took a deep breath before I let it out, “Fuck it, then he’ll probably see me cuck him in person then.”

“Yep— HUH?!”