“Of course,” he murmured, “the polystructural xion matrix senses and initiates a feedback loop based on proximate energy sources and matches them to facilitate intrusion past any protective energy field.”
“Does that mean something in English?”
He looked up and blinked to clear his blurry vision. Lexi was looking back down at him. “Where did you come from?”
“I heard you babbling and realized we’d all forgotten you came down here. Are you, like, okay?”
Her pink ears twitched. Tech flicked his own. “I think so. I’m making good progress.”
“You want something to eat?”
He waved toward the fridge. “I’ve got food here.”
“Yeah, but you’re not eating it.”
“It’s only been what, an hour?” His stomach growled, warning him that his estimate of time might be off.
She stared at him. “It’s been a day and a half. Listen, maybe you better get some rest.”
“I’m fine. I just need to run a few more tests.”
“But—”
“I’m fine.” He bent back to his bench and tried to ignore her.
She sighed. “Tell you what. I’ll send Rev down.”
That got his attention. “What? Why, uh, I mean, what would he have to say that would change my mind?”
“Oh, Tech.” She giggled. “I hear lots of stuff. Don’t worry, I think it’s cute. Doesn’t make a difference to me.” She left him bemused and scratching his head, his train of thought completely disrupted.
He’d only just turned himself back to the study of the weapon when he felt two hands on his shoulders and heard the roadrunner’s voice in his ear. “Hey cutey Lexi says you haven’t actually slept or eaten or anything in a while and she seemed to think I could do something about it so is it true and if it is then you gotta get out of his lab pronto because I am not gonna let you waste away like that.”
“I’m fine,” Tech said, and just then his stomach growled.
“Hey I’m not Lexi and even I heard that you better eat something cause otherwise you’re gonna faint I had an uncle who didn’t eat for a week and he passed out in the middle of a meeting at work only they thought he was just sleeping so they left him there for another day before anyone realized what was going on anyway if you really want to solve this problem you need food and rest and I’m gonna make sure you get it got it?” Rev punctuated his patter with squeezes to the coyote’s shoulders, which Tech realized were aching again.
“I think Lexi knows.” Tech said, leaning back even though he really wanted to continue his research.
“She probably knows a lot of things but I guess you mean about us since she asked me to come down here and talk to you and winked when she said it but she didn’t care and I don’t think she’s gonna be a jerk about it like Duck is and by the way he said something to me last night again but I just said ‘next time maybe I’ll leave you on the roof’ and he shut up so that felt pretty good let me tell you.” Rev kept working on his shoulders while he talked. “So what d’you say gonna take a break and get something to eat and get some rest or do I have to take more drastic measures?”
“What drastic measures?” Tech craned his neck around and saw Rev’s grin. “You know, coyotes can go a while without eating. I really need to keep working on this a little more. I’m at a really critical—”
He barely saw Rev’s movement, but the hands on his shoulders lifted and he heard his fridge door slide open and shut. When he started to say “really” he was lifted and carried through the corridors of the base, and before he finished the word “critical” he was being deposited on a soft bed. He looked around and saw holos of the desert on the wall, cacti on small shelves around the room, a poster of Trick Daly on his basherball bike, a few models of different kinds of aircraft, and a glove and ball lying on the floor. Rev stood over him and dumped the energy bars he’d taken from Tech’s fridge on his stomach.
“Now you’re gonna eat those while I stand here and watch you and then you’re gonna sleep and I’m gonna lock the door yeah I know you can rig the lock and get out but I’m trusting you not to cause you need your strength and that guy hasn’t come back yet so we got some time you got that?” He folded his arms and looked sternly down at the coyote.
“Yessir.” Tech couldn’t help grinning. He unwrapped the first energy bar and ate it, chewing slowly because now that he was lying down on a soft bed, he realized he was pretty tired. “I didn’t know you were into airplane models.”
Rev glanced over at the models. “I like to do ’em when I’m bored I try to see how long it takes me to do ’em but there haven’t been any really interesting ones since the Dragonfly X541 that one was cool it had two sets of wings and three sets of stabilizers and the model had a real working engine I needed to buy a whole new toolset to put the engine together and wow! it was powerful enough to get into orbit and I kinda lost track of it but it was still the coolest thing in a while and it made me wanna ride in the real Dragonfly only they decommissioned the last one two months before the meteor hit so I won’t ever get to do that and don’t
