"Soooo what happened here Kosi?" Rue asked as she looked around the room at the scattered papers laid across the table and floor.
She rolled her eyes when Kosi let out a deep sigh. "Alright it wasn't my fault, the papers were all science stuff and I didn't really wanna read em besides you're the lab tech you can actually understand this stuff. Help me please" Kosi said walking around the room picking up the pages.
"Okay you not reading things or not liking to read I'm used to but why are the pages thrown around, what's that about?" she asked going to help him tidy up. "Oh it was so boring I got annoyed and just threw them in the air like-" he then proceeded to throw the pages in the air to demonstrate.
Arms falling to her side Rue looked at him. "...I didn't need to do that did I" he said looking at her blank expression. All she did was shake her head. "I should pick these up and sort them for you to read later shouldn't I" he continued. All she did was nod and walk away into the kitchen. Once the papers were sorted Kosi went into the kitchen to help Rue prepare dinner.
"You know they said we have maybe a year of water left. Apparently the boroughs are almost empty" Rue said as she measured out how much water they needed down to the last milliliter. "Yeah I haven't eaten pancakes or sweet things in ages either" Kosi said as poured two cans of insect stew. Adding water to the stew and taking two slices of synthesized bread each they had their dinner.
After eating they sat on the couch as Rue looked over the papers. "Alright so you said there was a thing in here about trying to shut the Exploration Project down" she said reading through the document stating the mayor's office wants the project halted. "Yeah and there's a date on the third page from a week before it got shut down saying it's been halted due to an accident" Kosi replied monotonously as he sorted the lab reports from the legal documents.
"Hey here look at this" Kosi said pointing to what looked like the bill that got the project approved. "Recognizing the dangerous and expensive cost of resources needed for this project the following clause has been added: immediate termination of the project will occur in the event of a shortage of personnel; shortage of resources; public protest; freak accidents..." Kosi said trailing off as he placed his head in his hands.
"Um K you alright?" Rue asked as she placed a hand on his back. "Yeah just... I don't know it's just a hard pill to swallow is all. I guess I got used to just losing my parents in an accident now it's cause someone didn't want them to do their jobs.." he replied as his voice cracked.
Placing his fingers on the bridge of his nose he took a deep breath as Rue rubbed his back. "Alright I'm okay" he said as he cleared his throat. Moving her hand off his back and into his hand she held it tight as she sat closer to him. "We can stop whenever you want babe" she said softly as she rested her head on his shoulder. "I'm good we can keep going" he replied squeezing her hand in turn.
"Alright well I noticed something weird about the lab reports, want me to explain it?" Rue asked looking at Kosi. "Yeah" he breathed as he gave her a reassuring smile.
"Okay babe, well when you guys were setting up the sensors we got sound readings of what the inside of the walls looked like. The more open space there was the longer it took for the echo to get back to us. You following so far?" she asked looking at Kosi visibly focusing. "Yeah" he replied nodding.
"Good. So that means the less time it takes the echo to come back the less open space there is meaning the harder it is to tunnel through. But where you guys are going to be digging are the areas where the ground underneath is more solid meaning you can tunnel through without the ground under you giving out" she continued with a glint in her eyes.
Looking at Kosi his smile grew wider. "What" she asked smiling back at him. "You're really cute when you're talking about your nerdy stuff" he replied. She stuck her tongue out and went back to explaining. "We scanned the area your parents disappeared in again and the echos suggest the rocks were just shifted somehow. Like something in there just threw the rocks around" she continued.
"What could have done that?" he asked. "Well it could have been a tremor but those would have shook the ground and I don't remember the ground shaking do you?" she asked. Kosi shook his head. "That leaves something in that area moving the rocks. Maybe some animals but then no other areas were shifted so it's isolated to there. The scanners weren't wrong cause it was fine until they were inside, so then something happened while they were in there" she said intensely focused on the page.
"...Well what else could have done that?" He asked tentatively. "Alright well if I had to guess... I'm gonna say there was a controlled explosion" she replied squeezing his hand. Kosi just let out a deep sigh and rolled his eyes. "Shit guess I'm just cried out" he said chuckling.