Bring The Heat

12. VS Arms Race

"Yo! Wren! Get up, dumbass!"

Wren sat up groggily, and groaned. Reluctantly, she drudged out of bed and threw on some jeans, a shirt, and her bomber jacket. She had to get to work...

It had been about a week or two now, and as it turned out, working for the smartest man alive didn't really let up. And to be honest, she hadn't let up on herself either. As it turns out, opening that big old lockbox of emotion only makes it all the more easier to lock down again... and every time she thought about catching extra rest, she thought about those horrible scars all over Dominic's body, cruel reminders of his time under his captor's control. For everyone here, she had to find out who this mastermind was.

She had been working closely with Dominic and Rebound, and as much as she missed Tenson and Cece, she had really begun to like her teammates.

Dominic was fun to make fun of. He was a very deep, poetic guy, and all the long, fancy words he said to make smart guys hard and dumb girls swoon bounced right off of Wren's thick skull and returned through her voice as the most powerful retaliation of all: "That sounded really gay."

Rebound was still an asshole, but in an endearing way. He seemed quite protective, actually, and had demanded BM go easier on her and Dominic, and let them rest. Of course, Wren stayed back and worked anyway, and Dominic stayed too out of courtesy.

Them and BM had spent the past week slaving over profiles they were building on the potential culprit of Dominic's possession, but it was kind of a dead end. BM seemed to be typing constantly though, in some own special program he had devised for himself. Wren found he'd be looking up at her a lot, and look away when she noticed. The rest of the time, they'd be doing something tedious like searching for energy spikes in certain places on maps, but that it would even detect anything was just a theory.

Wren had no idea why she felt so responsible for this case, but with barely any previous life, all she did all day now was work. BM must've decided that this was unhealthy, as this morning her door opened to not him, but Tenson.

She guessed that made sense. BM probably wouldn't call her 'dumbass'. But she didn't even notice what had been said to her, all she heard nowadays was 'start work' and 'go to bed'.

"We found something! And you're coming with us! Fruits of your labour, baby!" Tenson cheered, hyped to be doing cool stuff with his best friend.

Wren might've, at some point, been hyped too, but she just felt like a failure for getting kicked off of work, so she just smiled softly.

"Alright. Let's go."

The car ride was silent for the first few minutes. Cece and Tenson anxiously waited for Wren to say something, but she just stared lifelessly through the window. They had really missed her, and were worried they had lost her forever. Had her personality and charm really been replaced by her obsession over her work? Tenson decided that she might be more comfortable speaking up if someone else started the conversation.

"So... where are we going?"

He knew the answer, but thought it was of the most direct interest to Wren.

"We've found someone of interest. We're on our way to recruit him, and BM and Dom are gonna go get... someone else!" Cece replied, trailing off at the last part. Seemed like there was some kind of baggage there...

There was an awkward silence, as both she and Tenson waited to see if Wren would ask any follow-ups. Finally, she spoke up, in an uninterested voice;

"What's our guy do?"

Tenson was relieved to hear her engaging, but Cece was even more disappointed. There was no Wren in the voice that had just spoken.

"Metal synthesis." she replied. She made it sound as cool as possible. 'Metal synthesis'. Wren would love that.