“Anything colossal, anything stupendous, anything revolutionary!” George says with an extravagant waving of his hands. Blane nods, arching his brows in a look of bemusement.
Axiom’s people—in a caravan of seven white gliders—drop off rolling containers of lab equipment brimming with the latest in holo tablets and software, testing chambers and micro-tools for performing experimental surgery on tiny particles of the Fireseed plants. The new equipment crowds out the old-fangled beakers and test strips that Nevada has scavenged over the years in what she’s now calling The Project Room, a spacious but sparely furnished room on third tier. With Blane and Radius’ help, she’s moved in four long tables that she had in her storage barn. They are all bowed in the middle as if the heat of the sun has melted their cores.
Nevada’s beaming and buzzing about, coordinating the delivery. It makes me realize how determined she must’ve been to start a school on nothing, really. Nothing more than a big heart and wanting to give a bunch of wandering teenagers a better life than she had.
It makes me intensely curious as to how she fell into the grip of the so-called terrorist group that Armonk mentioned. He called it the Zone Warrior Collective, and went on to tell of the time they bombed the border wall up north, and poisoned Varik’s father’s crops to protest the starving folks down here. I make a mental note to ask Armonk more about her past. He must be aware of it if his mom was a friend of hers. When we start to sort though the supplies Nevada looks on like a proud mother. If she can love these mean kids, maybe I can try harder.
I glance over at Blane, his overgrown muscles clenching up out of hardwired habit, and Jan’s defensive stoop as he hoards his picks, and I decide to give them a second chance. They’ve had a horrendous time of it—I know Blane has—wandering around in the desert, lost, parentless. Thorn and I were only exposed one night and it seemed like forever.
But they are nothing if not fast on claiming what’s theirs. While I am surreptitiously studying them, Blane, Radius, Vesper and Bea have already put dibs on their equipment. Only Jan seems at loose ends, pawing around in the jumble of leftover items and restlessly moving them into and out of his pile.
Armonk rubs his still-swollen cheek with its ragged cut as he chooses some random storage containers. He puts them next to Thorn’s pile of smaller containers and micro-scissors. “How are you, little guy?” he asks Thorn, who of course doesn’t answer in words, only with a slight nod of the head. I see him angle up one of his tiny boxes for Armonk to see, and I smile inside when Armonk answers, “That’s quite the box, Mr. Thorn. I can’t wait to see what you put in there.”
Thorn goes to officiously organizing the boxes in rows with the cutting tools at neat right angles. He’s always been precise that way.
Nevada enters the room and she and Armonk exchange quiet words. Armonk settles a square of cloth over his selection of goods and they exit together.
At this, Blane lets out an irritated, “Phss.” He and Jan exchange comments about how Peg Leg needs his nursery mom to bottle-feed him.
“She better not be angling to share the grand prize with that con,” grumbles Vesper. After that she keeps a close watch on the project room door for Armonk’s return.
“Peg-leg isn’t smart enough to invent anything,” Jan says darkly. Jan doesn’t look so smart either, pacing around aimlessly. His work materials are scattershot: some paper, a scissors, a mirror and a vessel of glue. Good for a third grade art project.
Brushing off my urge to defend Armonk, I concentrate instead on my final choices of Axiom equipment. I decide on a pair of tiny pinchers, red threads, sample syringes, matches, test containers, spinning devices, a box of beakers and tiny collection jars. A holo tablet too. There’s one for each of us! I’ve never had access to one at home, and I’m not even sure how to use it. Last, I choose an array of oils of unknown contents. I’ll figure out what these are and why Axiom thought to deliver them. It shouldn’t take long. My specialty is mixing compounds, and most do need some type of lubricant base. Who knows exactly what kind I’ll get from Fireseed, but my set of tools look professional, lined up on the table in front of me with my nametag claiming them.
Bea and Vesper are sharing a table, Blane and Jan, Armonk and Thorn. I’m stuck with Radius, who moves as far from me as he can. As Radius and I organize our materials we shoot off wary side-glances as if to say, don’t even think about figuring out my angle.
With a pronounced click, the project room door opens, and Armonk walks back in. His expression’s determined, and he says nothing more about returning home empty-handed.
Jan raises his hands in a pantomime of a baby at a bottle and makes sucking noises. Only Vesper laughs.