Hang In There

Chapter 3

Bomb rubbed her hands together. "Time for y'all to work on your tasks! See ya later!" she exclaimed and marched away to the door east of the table, the one that led to Weapons.

Everyone in the room stared after her. After a long second, I asked, "Hey, Frank, I have a Scan in Medbay. Wanna watch?" My words became a wake-up call, and Blue left, with Pink and some others on her heels.

Frank nodded. His eyes seemed to be...sky blue when I looked into them. For a split second, his face got a shade darker. I warded off the thought, thinking I was imagining things. He suggested, "Since we probably have tasks all over the ship, in different places, maybe we should split up?"

I agreed and added, "We'll meet in Security after our tasks are done, right?"

He smiled. "Of course!"

By that time, we'd already reached the scanner, so I stepped onto the platform and selected the USE button on my tablet. The green light rays began scanning me.

Frank looked confused. "Aren't you going to start?"

I gestured toward the obvious rays that were temporarily blinding my eyes. "It's right here."

He said, "Uh...I'm not seeing any flashing lights."

I realized, "Yellow, or Mouse, the host, must have turned visuals off! No wonder you can't see me scan!"

Frank gave a nonchalant shrug and questioned, "I think we should split up now?" I nodded and we split up, me to Upper Engine, Frank headed toward Admin.

I Aligned Engine Output for the Upper Engine, and watched the task shift to Lower Engine, white to yellow. Blue studied me as she passed from Security to Medbay. I passed White, who was waiting for Black to finish his task (He was doing Start Reactor).

She waved to me and whispered something to Black. He nodded, and she bounced over to me.

"Hi!" she smiled.

"Hello!" I responded. "Where are you going next?"

"Electrical. I have tasks to do, and Jack takes waaaaaay too long to do that task. He has a horrible memory," she confided in me.

"What do you like to do in your free time?" I asked her to fill the silence.

White answered, "I like tinkering with machines a lot. I once broke a microwave while trying to fix it. And a coffee pot." She paused for a moment, before asking me, "What about you?"

I thought about that for a second. "I draw. If you look in any book I have, whether it's a sketchbook or a notebook, there's going to be all kinds of drawings there like imaginary monsters or real people or just something." I smiled at that.

"So, how do you and Black know each other?" I asked curiously, as we headed to Electrical, because I needed to Download Data.

"Jack's my brother. He's only older by a year, but never forgets to remind me." We entered Electrical. "How do you know Orange?"

While I was waiting for my tablet to finish downloading, I answered,
"We've been best friends for like three years."

"So, how do you know I'm not an imposter?" she asked, while working on her task, which was Divert Power to Navigation.

"Because if you were, you would've killed me by now. What about you? How do you know I'm not going to kill you?" I smiled at her. Something about White made her feel trustworthy.

White grinned back, her teeth flashing. "Same reason. Are you done yet?"

I shook my head. "This is going to take a while and I also have Fix Wiring. You should go ahead."