Intertwined-chapter 5

Sorry it took so long to post another chapter.  I've been crazy busy.  Thank you to anyone who took time to review my work.  This is another chapter from the original character's perspective in my Avengers Fanfiction.  

“What, no, seriously?” I couldn’t believe it.  How, how, how had I known this was going to happen?

“You jinxed it, Sara.”  Said Abby, who was lounging in her seat, idly examining her fingers again, having already completely checked out of the conversation.

“I did not!” I turned back to Sarah, “Why did you make me jinx it?”  She didn’t answer, just returned my glare with that same, steady, absolutely undisclosing stare she’d been using throughout the entire the conversation.

Abby and I had gone looking for Zack and Chris just liked I’d wanted, and we’d found them.  Chris was attempting to a read ginormous book that apparently had something to do with astrophysics, except that I was pretty sure it was actually in ancient Greek which was why it looked like it had personally met Socrates of several occasions.  Zack, on the other hand was trying to see how many knives he could fit in an inch diameter red bulls eye. So far, it looked like he was up to about 20.  

Ahh, I mused, the mighty Eka’ khan’tali—Truth-bringers—feared and praised across all of time and eternity, bearers of glorious peace and lacerating justice.  And now looked where our boredom had brought us too.  Which were pretty much the textbook definition of textbook boredom?

“Chris!” I said, flinging myself across his lap, knocking the book from his fingers.

“Umm...hey Sara.” he said, giving me a slightly mystified expression.  Zack glanced up at us, another knife clutched firmly in his left hand, and I immediately launched into the same experience slash story slash theory that I’d just given to Abby.

Chris had looked intrigued by my pronouncement, perhaps even a tad bit hopeful. Zack responded pretty much the same way Abby did.  Like, really, pretty much the same way—as in using so many of the same words it was freaky but also pretty cool since it gave further evidence to my theory that Zack and Abby were actually robots who had been produced in the same factory all terminator like—way.

“So, anyway, Abby and I were thinking we should do something, you know, in the meantime, since Sarah’s probably not even going to tell us what’s up until after lunch anyway.”

“Really, and what exactly were you thinking of doing?” Zack said, he and Chris both looked at Abby, who looked at me. Then Chris and Zack both looked at me.  I attempted a grin, but it was a very awkward. “Umm....” In truth I’d about exhausted all of my really great ideas within the first week, so now we were only left with the sort of cool ideas—except that I was coming up blank on those too.

They didn’t realize how intimidating they were when they all bore down on me, even Chris, with his innocently inquisitive expression, looked formidable.

I chewed on my lip as I glanced around, looking for some form of inspiration. My eyes rested on Chris’s book.  It had a rather crude drawing on the front, perhaps it had been nice at one time, but now it was old and faded.  I wasn’t even sure what it was, though since it was on a star book it had to be a constellation of some sort.  It looked to me like some sort of red monster, a deranged red monster, its form distorted like it been—taken from a kids coloring book. Yes, that was what it reminded me of.  And there was a tear in the book, just below what I’d imagined to be the claw of the monster. I smiled, with the way it was positioned it almost looked like the monster was tearing his way out of the page and into the real world...

I blinked, caught off guard by the image that presented itself. Then, slowly, my lips erupted into a satisfied smirk.

Abby blinked, a big response for her.  Zack groaned and Chris, Chris met my gaze.  His guarded eyes staring at me curiously, and mildly, though I was sure I saw them gleam for a flash of a second.

When Sarah showed up, we were halfway through the project I had so creatively named, “project red monster.” Chris and I were sprawled on the floor, coloring in a very old princess and dragon kids coloring book that I had found in the back of the nursery. We had a room for every occasion, like a nursery for when we had kids aboard.  Which happened, but not as often as I would’ve liked.

Anyway, Abby was busing running wires from our holographic projector to the animator.  She was perched precariously on a few pieces of scrap metal that she had stacked on top of each other, a huge tangle of cords winding around her thin frame and a screwdriver clamped between her jaws.  Zack was sitting at the table, everything about him entirely focused on the animator board  as he shifted the intricate little nodes into a new formation, his fingers flying.

If everything went according to plan,  we were going to be able to bring mine and Chris’s pictures to life.  Well, an animated holographic projection of life—but that was close enough.

“Chris, you’re doing it wrong.”  I said, looking up from my own handwork. He paused, frowning.

“But I’m coloring in the lines?”

“Exactly.”

He gave me sideways glance, eyebrows raised. “I don’t follow.”

Now I paused, letting out a huff of breath. “The point of this whole—thing—is to make possible the childhood dream of having your pictures  come to life. Which means that we have to draw like toddlers, so that we get the full effect on seeing something that could not possibly exist in real life and totally looks like it came out of the brain of a two year but is still completely and undeniably fabulous, and real.” Both Abby and Zack gave me an incredulous look, and I wanted to scream.  Or at least huff and through my hands into the air. You would think these guys had never been kids, ever. I mean, I knew they were all kid prodigy geniuses with really messed up backgrounds and Abby had pretty much been raised in an underground lab, but still.

“Hence, don’t color in the lines.”

Chris started to say something, but stopped abruptly as a shadow fell across me.

“What,” came the eerily quiet voice, “the hell are you doing to my equipment?”