Chapter 27: Hope

‘“He’ll be okay.” Anny took her fingers away from Spencer’s neck and sighed loudly. “He’ll need plenty of fluids. Maybe some iron supplements. Pain medication once his stomach has something in it. Also he shouldn’t do anything too strenuous tomorrow.”

Sarah breathed for what felt like the first time since she had caught the commander mid fall. Beatrice and Naomi visibly relaxed from their positions nearby.

“You have medical training?” Naomi scoffed.

Anny shrugged. “Just a bit of basic stuff. I was typically assigned to protect high value commanders.”

“Let me guess, they fell down a lot in the ruins?” Naomi asked with a knowing smirk.

Both Anny and Beatrice nodded in agreement. It appeared everyone here had similar experiences back home. Typical commanders in their world were truly pitiful creatures.

Not a single one of those worthless bastards would ever think about picking up a rifle and fighting alongside their engies. Sarah felt a surge of pride course through her as she gently brushed a lock of Spencer’s hair off of his forehead. Please let me take better care of you, commander.

“Any idea why he’d jump up and pass out like that?” Anny asked while absentmindedly studying the commander’s chest as it rose and fell periodically.

Beatrice lifted her whiteboard from a distance. ‘Got the last pod.’

Sarah nodded. “My guess is he saw something in that system of his. Hopefully it was good news…”

She loathed to leave him like this, but Sarah was the best suited person here to retrieve anything the commander could need.

“Beatrice.” Sarah stood and walked to the hatch they accessed the roof through. “With me. We need to see if we can find iron supplements, hydrating drinks, and… maybe snacks he likes…”

She paused at the entrance and let her eyes unfocus for a moment.

Snacks he likes… 

There was a lot they still didn’t know about Spencer. The last few days had been so focused on survival that something as simple as snacks hadn’t come up once. A whiteboard slowly entered Sarah’s field of view.

‘I noticed the commander eyeing a bag of pretzels downstairs.’ Beatrice smiled brightly at her.

Sarah nodded and let a small smile tug at the edge of her lips. “We should grab some then. We’re the two close range engies the commander has. It’s our responsibility to fetch what he needs tonight. Let’s work quickly and head back up as soon as we can.”

Beatrice nodded. Sarah unsheathed her sword and dropped down the opening into the dark grocery store below.

******

Naomi diligently scanned the edges of the roof. Given the fact that her watch partner had been pulled down to run an errand with the sword princess, Naomi positioned herself closer to the commander. Anny remained by his side to monitor his vitals. Despite her personal grievances with the pink haired tech wizz, Naomi had to admit she felt better having someone on the team that knew even a little bit of first aid.

“What did he mean when he said that?” Anny’s question came quietly in the still night.

Naomi blinked. She forced herself not to abandon the procedural sweep of her eyes across the roof. A bat flew by, presumably on the hunt in the dark.

“When he said what?” Naomi responded when Anny didn’t follow up with anything.

Anny shifted in place, her skirt rustling lightly before she continued. “About you learning how to trust… Why does that matter?”

“It shouldn’t.” Naomi admitted. “But it does to him.”

Her heart did that annoying flutter whenever she thought about the commander.

“And this trust you’re developing… It’s helping you grow stronger?” Anny hugged her knees to her chest and let her eyes fall back to Spencer’s sleeping body.

“In a way.” Naomi shrugged. “He risked his life to save my own. That’s more than anyone else has ever done for me in my sorry life. I’m going to be strong enough to prevent anything like this from happening ever again.”

Naomi glanced Anny’s way. “What about you? Why are you so desperate to be strong?”

Anny shook her head, her pink hair bouncing slightly from the motion, but otherwise refused to answer. Naomi chuckled and turned back to her watch.

“You don’t have to tell me, but that guy next to you will probably pull it out of you. It’s hard not to talk when your heart is doing flips looking into his deep brown eyes.”

Anny blushed. “I don’t…”

She glared at the side of Naomi’s face.

“You’re not how I thought you’d be.” Anny admitted. “After everything I heard about…”

The shorter girl trailed off to which Naomi simply nodded.

“Well,” Naomi straightened her posture and stretched out leisurely with a smile. “That was yesterday. New world being destroyed, new me.”

Her eyes swung down to Spencer’s sleeping face and her smile softened significantly.

“A welcome change. I’m sure darling would agree.”

******

Spencer’s eyes blinked open to find daylight illuminating the thin layer of clouds high in the Californian sky. The sun had yet to crest the horizon fully so it was still pleasantly cool in his makeshift bed. The gears in his mind finally caught up with him as sleep left his body.

Sleeping bags, on the roof, engies… Spencer sat up. “Revival!”

Something crinkled loudly as he shifted positions and Spencer felt several loose items slip off of his chest and fall to the rooftop beside him. It was a bag of salted pretzels.

Correction. 

It wasn’t just one bag.

There were about a hundred bags of pretzels on and around his bed. The obvious question formed on his lips just as Spencer turned to find Sarah’s face inches away from his own.

“How are you feeling?”

Her purple irises flickered rapidly around Spencer’s eyes like she was reading the printout of a computer. Spencer swallowed hard.

“Hey… uh… I guess I went and passed out on you. Sorry about that.”

Sarah’s version of irritation flickered through her face. A slight tightening of her eyes, the left corner of her lips twitching down, and the smallest lowering of her thin eyebrows. All subtle motions Spencer had learned to look for with his usually stoic companion.

“How are you feeling?” She repeated firmly.

Spencer blinked and looked down at himself. The torn bloodsoaked shirt was gone as well as the jeans he had on. In their place he had a loose dark blue sweatshirt on and a pair of black athletic shorts.

“Someone changed my clothes for me?”

Sarah reached under a pile of pretzels and removed a blue sport’s drink from the plastic rings holding the six pack together. There was a flash of steel and the lid of the drink fell off soundlessly.

“The sight of you sleeping covered in your own dried blood was… difficult for the team.” Sarah reported flatly.

Her gloved hand forcibly tilted Spencer’s head back and began pouring the sport’s drink down his throat. Spencer’s protests turned to incoherent splutters, but Sarah didn’t relent. Only when half of the bottle was either in Spencer’s stomach or dripping from his chin did Sarah stop.

“Hey!” Spencer coughed and glared at her. “What was that for?”

“You avoided my question twice.” Sarah stated matter-of-factly and without a shred of regret. “According to Anny you should be dizzy, weakened, and queasy.”

Spencer wiped his chin and bit back the urge to say that he was fine.

“I… yeah.” He leaned back on the sleeping bags and draped an arm over his forehead. “All of that is accurate.”

Sarah nodded and brought the blue drink back forward. This time she refrained from forcing it down Spencer’s throat. Spencer smiled sheepishly and accepted the drink into his free hand.

“Thank you.”

Sarah visibly relaxed at his heartfelt words of gratitude.

“You’re welcome, commander.” She carefully cleared a space next to his bed to sit graciously beside him.

Her hand reached into a discreet pocket in her dress and removed a simple green pill.

“Iron supplement.” She explained as she pushed the pill pointedly into Spencer’s palm.

It was clear that taking the supplement wasn’t optional. Spencer sat up enough to pop the pill into his mouth and drain the rest of the sport’s drink.

“To answer your questions, yes, I changed you last night.” Sarah said calmly while her careful eyes watched Spencer lay back down. “Your shirt was unrecoverable and has been disposed of. If you truly want it back you’ll have to ask Naomi. I believe she kept it for sentimental reasons.”

Sarah nodded to the front right corner of the grocery store rooftop where the silver haired engie sat behind the knee high outer wall and dutifully surveyed the destroyed cityscape around them. Beatrice had a similar posture on the front left corner and after he turned his head Spencer spotted Anny’s pink hair at the center of the rear wall.

“Anny is not a medical engie, but she is trained in basic first aid.” Sarah continued. “You’ll need rest today, plenty of fluids, and snacks that you enjoy.”

She grew apprehensive at the last statement. Sarah’s slender fingers lifted one of the many bags of pretzels and shyly offered it to Spencer.

“Are these… enjoyable for you?”

“Well yeah, I like pretzels just fine, but…” Spencer made a hand gesture questioning the sheer number of bags on and around him. “What’s with all of this?”

A bit of color entered Sarah’s pale cheeks.

“Well… Beatrice was actually the one who noticed you glance at the pretzels last night. I promise I’ll do better observing your preferences, commander, but when we brought a few bags up the other two wanted to give you something too. No one really knew what else you would like so Naomi brought up twice as many bags than Beatrice and I had.” Sarah’s lips took a downturn. “I suppose we got a bit competitive and before we even realized it we had brought up every bag of pretzels the store had.”

All Spencer could do was shake his head and laugh.

“Thank you, honestly.” He reached out and took Sarah’s hand in his own. “I’m sorry for giving you a scare.”

They both squeezed each other’s hand gently at the same time like their hearts had synced up as one.

“I’ve been issued a couple of new quests.” Spencer finally explained the reason for his sudden rise and subsequent fall last night.

Sarah nodded. “Yes, commander. We suspected as much. What is our task now? More teammates?”

Her fingers tightened slightly at the prospect of more engies around. Despite her assurances it was clear that every engie felt similarly. They wanted more strength around Spencer, but they loathed the idea of more competition. Spencer shook his head.

“No. Turns out I currently have a team limit of five. I’m not sure how or when I can increase that limit, but I won’t be chasing any pods for a while.”

Sarah raised a questioning eyebrow. “Five?”

His free hand flipped up and deftly navigated to a new section of his system.

“New menus came online after we picked up Anny. One of them,” Spencer pointed to the floating box that Sarah couldn’t see, “is a roster dismissal page. It shows everyone that’s currently on the team.”

There she was. Her face smiling brightly in the first roster slot. The border around her face was red, probably signifying her deceased status, but she was still there.

“Andrea?” Sarah asked with a genuine smile. “You found a way to bring her back?”

Spencer quickly navigated to the quest page and tapped the latest quest information.

“There’s a skill I can unlock called daily revival. This has to be it. All we have to do is kill an abomination.”

He tried to sit up, but a firm hand snapped to his chest and held him down. Sarah lifted a stern eyebrow at Spencer.

“Right. Resting.”

Rather than argue with an incredibly strong biologically enhanced human, Spencer opened up one of the many bags of salted pretzels and scooped out a handful. At the sound of the rustling bag Naomi and Beatrice’s heads whipped around in his direction. Naomi looked smug.

“I told you he’d choose my bag first!” She jabbed a finger in Beatrice’s direction.

Beatrice shook her head and simply smiled at Spencer.

‘I’m glad you’re okay, commander.’ She signed to him from a distance.

“The bags were mixed together when the commander shifted awake. Our piles are no longer in order.” Sarah observed. “Besides I believe the chosen bag was from Anny’s offering.”

The pink haired engie didn’t turn, but Spencer thought he spotted a faint flush rush into the tips of her ears.