Chapter 5

After a few hours of explaining how things worked in Clari and I’s little world, I cautiously maneuvered my way through her garage, Victoria and Sean following directly behind me, grunting and whining every step of the way.

“How does she expect anybody to get through here!” Veronic complained, tripping over a miscellaneous trinket.

I turned back to her and grinned wickedly. “Exactly.”

In all reality, I wondered that myself sometimes, but seeing as I was Clari’s only real friend, it seemed fitting for her anti-social self.

“But— OW!”

Just as we were nearly in sight of Clari’s workbench, Veronica tripped on something else, this time bringing a whole mountain of gadgets avalanching down on top of her. Sean then fell over the new pile of scraps and landed partially on top of Veronica, who, except for a few random strands of her brown hair and the black of her real comicin leather jeans, was completely hidden.

Sean grunted in pain, and Victoria moaned.

I suppressed a slight bit of laughter, but then realized that Clari was going to be even more pissed now that her “organized” mess was now “unorganized.”

“What the hell—” She started, popping up over yet another pile of items. She was wearing her ectosyn helmet that had various gadgets attached to all sides of it (to tell the truth it looked more like a swiss army knife that had been turned into an aviation helmet). “Oh, no! No! What the hell are they doing here, Younts?” She fumed, saying my name with the same amount of disgust as if I were a Feral.

I laughed a little awkwardly and tried to think of a quick excuse so that she wouldn’t kill me right on the spot.

“Ummm….” Oh shit. I couldn’t think of anything.

“Umm? That’s all you have to say? Why I oughta…” She stormed toward me angrily, a soldering pen in her right hand, a wrench in the other (the wrench was her. . . main weapon of choice).

Just as she stepped around the pile of gadgets, she fell over thin air and right into my arms.

“How’s that vodka been treating you?” I asked, a sarcastic grin on my face.

She frowned irritably and narrowed her piercing blue eyes at me.

“. . . Jerk. . .” she muttered as she stood up and jerked herself out of my grasp.