Survival

Chapter 36 First

 "Yes, sir," Quinton answered without skipping a beat.

"Mischa?"

She squelched the desire to roll her eyes. "Yes, Dad."

The conversation grew more amicable as the colony's electrical set-up became the hot topic. Mischa put in quips where she could, trying to retell facts that Quinton had taught her about circuitry. She almost got a smile out of her dad at some points.

"I appreciate the time you've taken to help Mischa understand some of the mechanics of this world. It isn't as easy as you would think," Nate said.

"The mechanics or teaching Mischa?" Quinton said with a smile.

Nate let out a low laugh while Mischa frowned and gave her friend a swift elbow to the side. "You'd best watch what you're implying, right Mischa?"

"I'm just joking," Quinton said and put his palms up in defence. But Mischa shook her head and scrunched up her nose. He turned back to Nate. "There isn't much else to do around here so the shop lets me borrow parts sometimes and we mess around with them. Not much success, but we try."

Nate nodded, looking between the two of them for longer than Mischa liked. His eyes settled on Quinton, and he nodded with a small smile.

"It was nice to see you again, Quinton." Nate turned to Mischa, "I'll be running back to a meeting, and it might run a bit late, but I want to see you when I get home."

"Yeah, you will. Have a good time at work."

Quinton began to laugh as Nate walked off. "You know, I've never had to work so hard to gain good impression with a girl who is so strongly set on being just friends."

"Maybe you're just slacking on good impressions."

He shook his head before the smile fell from his lips. "You could have warned me he thought we were..." His cheeks gained a redder tinge. "You know."

Mischa averted her eyes so she wouldn't laugh. His big round eyes appeared downright adorable when he was embarrassed. "Sorry, you distracted me with your news. Will you forgive me?"

"I don't have much of a choice, do I? It's that or lose my newest best friend." 

Mischa smiled back. "Plus we have so much planning to do. How could you pass that up? It'll be just like building those voltage adapter things."

Quinton's shoulders shook as he laughed. "Somehow I think our task will be a bit more challenging than those 'voltage adapter things'."

By lunch the following day, the weirdness between Mischa and Quinton had passed, at least in her eyes since they could joke around again. Navjot and Juana squeezed onto the bench with nearly identical trays of food, not that much variety could be procured around these parts, but it still rang true down to their drink choice. They went on about some code they worked on during their internship while Mischa wondered why she was the only one who hated her position.

"Attention," a voice boomed from the loudspeaker. The cafeteria noise died down quite quickly. "All female citizens between ages fifteen and thirty report to the hospital wing after lunch hour. I repeat, all female citizens between fifteen and thirty to the hospital wing."

Cold needles prickled at her skin, and dark blotches materialized in her line of vision. Quinton steadied her shoulders as she tumbled into him. "It's okay, Mischa. It's probably nothing. Just have some water, alright?"

Mischa brought the plastic cup to her lips even though her hands wouldn't stop shaking. Quinton rubbed circles on her upper back with his palm. His touched helped ground her and her vision returned to normal by the time he had stopped.