Hanging directly overhead like a heat ray, the sun made the once chilly bus into a warm oven. All the windows were down as everyone tried not to complain about the smoke that came from the hundreds of exhaust pipes that still stubbornly rumbled.
Connor didn't mind the heat as he barely sweated, it was a different scene compared to the girl beside him, who was silently sweating buckets. Despite this, she still had the knife to his side. Even with his godly patience, he still found it annoying to be held at knife point by a girl he doesn't know.
"You alright there?" He said smugly as he watched a streak of sweat go into her eye.
"Uhuh." She wiped her face with a cloth from her pocket, as she slightly jerked the knife.
"Ouch! Hey! It's not my fault you're wearing such thick clothing. At least take off your beanie." Connor grumbled as he rubbed his sore spot.
"No." She quietly snapped at him.
"Ok, ok. Hey, do you have water?" Connor looked at her for any belongings, but he didn't see a bag.
"There's water bottles up front." The girl said coldly.
"Oh, thanks for telling me such a useful information. Now, let me just wait until I experience a heat stroke from lack of water due to a certain girl holding me to my seat at knife point. If it'll eventually come to that, why don't you just go ahead and stab me!" Connor said with dramatic intensity. He got a little to into it as he attracted stares from some students. The girl had to smile awkwardly at them as she stepped on his foot.
"Ugh! Don't you ever stop talking?! Here!" She whispered her frustration as a bottle of water appeared from thin air, only to be shoved violently against his face.
Feeling the refreshing ice cool sensation against his face, he felt like he was in heaven, and hurriedly grabbed for the bottle. However, before he could react, it was taken back by the girl. Who was staring at the bottle of water with an incredulous look.
"What is it?" Connor asked as he eyed the condensation on the plastic bottle.
"Nothing, I just didn't know it had-never mind." The girl shook her head as she gave up the bottle.
"What? Baffled that an app with dimensional storage couldn't keep a bottle of water cold?" He asked but she didn't respond.
After taking a few swigs of the refreshing water, an idea surfaced in his mind. He was about ready to jump in and do more shop browsing, but looking at the girl's sweaty and miserable appearance, he felt bad.
"Hey." Connor stared at the girl with glittery eyes.
"What?" The girl stared suspiciously at him.
"Want some tea?" He waved his hands against the air, and a teapot appeared from nowhere."
"..." The girl had surprise in her eyes as she stared with caution.
"Don't look so surprised, you've already seen that I use the app." He rolled his eyes as he took off the lid of the teapot, and as he expected, it was empty... since he drank it dry back then.
Filling the teapot with the remaining water from the bottle, he covered the lid, and then began to jostle the liquid within. After a few seconds of swishing, he took off the lid once more, and saw that the clear water had turned a golden brown color. He smiled at the sight. However, when he felt that the tea wasn't warm, but instead refreshingly cool, his mood beamed immensely. This teapot really works wonders!
Carefully, he poured the 'iced' tea into the plastic bottle, and shoved it into the hands of the girl. He smiled with the light of a thousand suns.
"Go on, drink it! It's good tea." He smiled as he urged like a suspicious uncle.
"Um..." She examined the tea in the bottle, as she began to look at Connor in a new light... a crazy one.
"Don't worry, It's not poisoned. Trust me, it'll help with your crazy sweating... I think." Connor said with false confidence, as he got back to browsing the shop.
A few wordless minutes passed, as he peaked from his phone to look at the girl to see if she had tasted it. However, his eyes almost bulged when he saw her gulping down the last drops of the iced tea!
"Wow, you must really like it huh? But... you could've at least saved some for me..." Connor didn't know whether to laugh or cry, he truly wanted to hit this girl.
"Thanks." Her words carried a refreshing and cool breath.
"Don't... don't mention it." Connor smiled wryly.
He noticed that her sweating stopped, and not even the previous sweat marks were left. Her skin looked pristine and clean. She was even looking more energized, and the most wonderful thing- was that she put away her knife!
Although she seemed to be in a better mood, and the knife was already gone, she was still there. Silence was still there. They still didn't talk much, but Connor got used to it. She kind of reminded him of his sister. They both made him think of a thousand different words just to describe how annoying they were.
...
The sun began to cool as time slowly passed. The river of cars that bustled with life in the morning had grown to a quiet silence, and only the idle rumbling of engines could be heard. It was slow, unbearably slow. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that a rock moved faster than this river of metal that stretched on for several miles.
People were growing weary and impatient. Those at the far back have long continued their travels on foot, and it wouldn't be long until they caught up to the front. Nobody wanted to stay out in the cold for another night, it was still early in the afternoon, so many took the risk of abandoning their car to walk for a few hours, instead of being stuck in traffic for another several days. The teacher aboard Connor's bus, was one of those risk takers.
At this moment, the students began to walk out of the bus in an orderly manner. Some carried bags or supplies, while a majority of them went to reunite with their parents who had gathered thanks to the teacher informing them. Connor's parents were also amongst the crowd.
He only took a few steps towards them, before his mother rushed and grabbed ahold of him in a tight hug. Although it was awkward and cringey, the little reunion was sweet. More than anything, he was just happy to see his family again. As for that girl, he stuffed her into the back of his mind.
Connor watched her vanish into the crowd as they left the bus earlier. She didn't even look back, but she did whisper something to him. 'Nina' was all that she said. He couldn't even get to say anything to her before she went off on her own. If this was her name, he didn't know, but he did find it nice. However, he was a bit disappointed to see her leave, but it only lasted for a moment.
The loud chatter of the crowd started to soften, as the mass of people slowly marched on. Connor had a lot to think about, especially after doing so much research or 'window shopping' in the shop. His back up plan counted on himself to protect his family-if the military base doesn't work out. But his priority is to get to the base in the first place. At the mean time, he was chowing down on some ham sandwich that his mom made.
Along the way, he asked his parents about what happened to the city. Besides what he already knew, he found out that before the explosions started occurring, the military had already issued a mass evacuation for the city. Then the fighting began. There still wasn't much info about the situation in the city, however, he found it surprising when his dad said that the military could stand their ground against the superhumans.
He found it surprising. Sure, he was confident in the military's fire power, and seeing that they're smart, many if not all of the soldiers, are probably already using the app. But instead of feeling relieved, he couldn't help but get worried. There was something, something had to be going on. He just couldn't put his finger on it.
The more he strained his head over this, the more he began to feel it, it was the familiar feeling of fear. It was something that he surprisingly hadn't felt too much of in the past day. Which still struck him confused. Why hadn't the superhumans chase after the slow pack of cars? It was easy target, much easier than fighting the military, so why? Wasn't their quests to hunt down people?
'Wait. No not people, but app users.' He recalled back to the special event info. Defeating those people granted them 50% of their loot right? So it's safe to assume that it's also the same when they 'defeat' us.
'So why? It had been so quiet all this time! There should be a lot of them! What were they waiting for?! Why hadn't they attacked this defenseless horde of people, and just letting them safely get into the heavily fortified base?' Connor felt the fear creep within his mind as his brain began turning rapidly.
'What? Don't they fear that these thousands and thousands of people will use the app? I mean, the starters gift was pretty overpowered...' Connor's thoughts slowed, as well as his steps.
The fear had reached a high as he felt his heart beating out of his chest. He still had some pieces of the puzzle missing, but he might be on to something other than just paranoia. He only noticed it now, but the fear only began to appear when he started thinking of the military, or more specifically... the military base.
'Shit.' He cursed in his mind as he drew in a cold breath. The back of his shirt felt cold from his sweat. Noticing that he wasn't looking well, his dad spoke up besides him.
"Connor, you alright?" The deep voice boomed softly.
"Yeah, I'm fine, just tired." He smiled as he calmed himself down.
Great. Change of priorities. Whatever the hell is going to happen to the military base, he sure as hell doesn't want anything to do with it! Now, the only problem.
How does he convince his family to ditch somewhere else?