"What’s in my pocket?" Magnus froze for a split second, then quickly checked. From his pants pocket, he pulled out a small, blood-stained cartoon-print white underwear. Harper snatched it away, stuffed it in her pocket, and without a word, jumped out of the vehicle - slamming the door hard behind her.
Magnus felt confused. He racked his brain the whole way, but just couldn’t recall doing anything like that. No way. Absolutely impossible. Even if he was dead tired, he’d never be so out of it to not know sothing like that happened.
Still processing, he suddenly realized - she’d just gone out! And she didn’t even have a Fire Crystal to protect herself. He bolted out of the car... just in ti to see a flock of massive sparrows sweeping across the sky toward them.
No ti to think. Magnus launched himself onto the roof of the vehicle, then leaped, tackling Harper to the ground. They rolled together, tumbling until they were under the belly of a passenger bus.
Outside, the sparrows chirped and hopped around crazily. In his panic, Magnus had forgotten to activate his own Fire Crystal. He quickly switched it on and scanned both sides from under the bus. The birds hadn’t left yet. Gritting his teeth, he hissed at Harper beneath him, "Are you crazy? You trying to get yourself killed?"
Harper hadn’t actually ant to risk her life - she’d just forgotten. Hearing Magnus shout, she turned her face slightly, still stubborn as ever. "Why do you care? My life or death’s none of your business! You didn’t want to take responsibility, right? Then just let die! Why are you interfering?"
As she tried to wriggle out, Magnus grabbed her shoulders hard. "Listen up," he growled. "That blood on the underwear? That’s goose blood. These past few days, I’ve been slaughtering those damn birds. You think I wouldn’t notice?"
She went still. Lost. Panicked. Magnus clambered out from under the bus and, without pretending to be gentle, yanked her by the collar and dragged her back to the SUV. He shoved her into the driver’s seat.
"Stay here. I’m wiping this whole ss clean."
Though pissed, Magnus knew she’d been driving the past two days, helping out. He shut the door, turned, and went back to find Lana and Isabel.
Inside the RV, Magnus sat on a small stool before the couch with Isabel, Lana, and Mia gathered around. Mia had been coming and going the past few days, updating them on her findings.
Emily and Sophia looked pale. They hadn’t dared waste a single Fire Crystal to step outside recently. They’d been cooped up in the RV so long their skin had taken on a faint bluish tint.
Covered in dust, Magnus briefly filled them in on everything that had happened. The won listened quietly. Afterward, Liana finally spoke.
"We’ve been thinking while you were gone. We were waiting for you to get back so we could talk."
Magnus lit a cigarette, nodding. "Go on."
"We’re running way too low on Fire Crystals," said Liana. "The way we see it, there’s only one option left - we’ve got to dig into the Hanford City teorite."
"Exactly," Emily added. "Without Fire Crystals, we’re just sitting here waiting to die. If we want to live, we need a real plan to mine those crystals safely."
"Got any ideas yet?" Lana asked, still grimy, standing just behind Magnus. Emily let out a quiet sigh and shook her head slightly. "No. We’ve gone through a bunch of ideas, none of them sound."
Liana followed up with a soft groan. "Yeah, nothing works. One teoroid gives about twenty crystals. Say, that’s two Fire Crystals if we’re lucky. But it’d take ten people using Fire Crystals for a full hour to dig it up. We’d end up spending eight crystals just to get those two back... it’s a losing ga."
Sophia said flatly, "Forget using Fire Crystals. It’s not practical. We need a thod that doesn’t burn through resources but still lets us dig out the teoroids."
Charlotte turned to Magnus. "Magnus... you’ve been out on the front lines in Hanford City these past couple days. Think there’s any way we can get crystals out without using Fire Crystals?"
Digging without Fire Crystals...
Magnus let out a dry chuckle and shook his head. Just killing one mutated animal already took everything out of him. Now they wanted to mine teoroids without Fire Crystals? Not a chance.
Unless...unless they treated the teoroids like beasts, dragged them into an enclosed space sohow...
But teoroids weren’t that easy to move. And if they had to dig them hollow first just to make them moveable, what’s the point?
The room fell into silence again, everyone lost in thought.
"Let’s shelf that for now, we’ve got a more pressing issue." Liana looked straight at Magnus. "When we left, each vehicle got rations for three days. It’s been three days. I don’t know how things are looking in the back units, but food and water - definitely not enough. Plus the teoroid soil - we’ve got to keep it warm enough to draw energy from it at least once every three days, or the squad mbers’ bodies won’t hold up."
Distributing food...
Magnus ran a hand through his hair. Looked like this job was falling to him again.
But gods, he was exhausted. Only slept four hours in the last two and a half days, one of those right before they set out.
And now, they were short on Fire Crystals across the board. One crystal split between every three vehicles. Total inventory: three hundred sixty. He’d already handed out three hundred twenty. Liana had forty left - in theory. She’d given him ten, and another twenty to Mia for collecting mutated animal blood. Mia had used up ten already.
So now, Liana had ten crystals left. She couldn’t risk using them recklessly.
Feeding over eight thousand people - and supplying water? Ten crystals wouldn’t even begin to cut it. Ten people working ten hours still wouldn’t make a dent.
"I’ll go." Magnus let out a long exhale and forced himself to his feet. He rubbed at his bloodshot eyes and stepped over to the couch where Emily and Liana were seated. "Emily, give two glucose shots. Liana, tell which food trucks are still stocked, and what exactly I’m handing out."
Emily looked at him, worry flashing in her eyes. She reached into her bag and silently handed him three glucose shots. "Take these. But take a break after, okay?"
Lana stood behind Magnus. She finally couldn’t keep quiet, voice low and firm. "Let us do it. The Commander hasn’t even slept these days. It’s ti we stepped up."
Liana opened her mouth, hesitating. She did feel for Magnus - of course she did. She wished she could let him rest. But with only twenty Fire Crystals left, counting Mia’s batch... she didn’t have a good plan either.
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