Turn 45

--- Maya ---

“Hey, Seamus how are you doing today?” She asked, sitting down for breakfast.

“I don’t have to go to school today!” the four year old cheered.

“Neither do I!” She cheered too, since that was definitely something worth cheering about. “What are you going to do with your day off?”

Seamus seemed to think about it, before giving a decisive nod as he said. “I’m going to play.”

“That’s nice, I-”

“With you.” Seamus added pointing a finger at her, something that earned a laugh from her eavesdropping mother.

“Well, uh,” (what exactly did we have planned for today?)

(Kim wanted us to stop by later today, then we were going to gather a few resources, before likely spending our afternoon tinkering in the lab.) Her inner secretary informed her.

(Mm, the Kim thing isn’t until around noon so we can kill a couple of hours.)

“Well what do you know? That’s what I was planning to do today too.” She (falsely) admitted.

(Hey, it’s to make a four year old happy. So, zip it.) She told herself before asking,“So, what do you feel like doing today Seamus?”

“How about you two take Missy for a walk?” Her mamá suggested as she put a plate in front of her and Seamus. “The other kids are all busy today, and she hasn’t really gotten out of the house since all of you started school.”

“Ah, poor girl.” She cooed as the pit bull wandered over having heard her name. “Everyone’s neglecting you, but don’t worry me and Seamus are going to make sure you burn out all of that energy, aren’t we Seamus?”

“Uh-huh.” Seamus nodded. “Missy ‘s going to play with us so she doesn’t have to feel lonely.”

---

“So who exactly did you want me to meet?” She asked, having finally found Kim amongst the labyrinth that was the M.A.D. Club.

“Do you remember me telling you about Melvin?” Kim asked, as she led Maya past a number of twists and turns.

(Ergh, you would think a building of scientists would be more organized than this…) Her inner reason criticized with a mental grimace.

(To be fair they are mad scientists.) She pointed out to herself, before answering Kim. “You said he’s the guy who set up the electrical stuff for the building, right?”

(Yeah, for all we know their inner mes are running this show. Heh-heh-heh-ha!) Her own madness chimed in with a maniacal laugh.

(This place would be on fire if that was the case.)

“Right,” Kim nodded. “Well, since you said your stuff seems to have a more electronic bend to things than me and my critters, I figured I could-”

The other teen was cut off as one of the nearby rooms shook with a loud explosion, before black smoke quickly began to escape from beneath its doorway.

“Uh, you okay in there Jim?” Kim called with an alarming lack of worry.

“I’m good, auto-extinguisher already put it out.” Jim called back.

(You were saying?)

(I am significantly less comfortable inside of this death trap.)

“Should I be worried?” She asked, sharing her inner reason’s concern.

“No, no. This kind of thing happens all the time.” Kim assured her in that way that did the opposite. “You’ll get used to it eventually.”

(I very much doubt that.)

(Yeah… uh, our stuff doesn’t blow up that much does it?)

(I wish.)

“Either way, it’s this one here.” Kim told her, stopping at a door at the end of the hall.

“And this one is?” She prodded.

Rather than answering her, Kim knocked on the door. “Mel, you here?”

“Door’s open!” ‘Mel’ yelled from within.

“Right, come on.” Kim waved for Maya to follow her into the room.

“Uh, sure... ” She nodded, admittedly a little wary of walking into another M.A.D.’s domain. (Especially since the last one blew up.)

Following the other girl through the room, Maya took note of the various cables and engines running along the walls, ceiling, and floor of the room, before eventually coming across a heavier set man with a darker skin tone.

“So is this the kid you were telling me about?” the large man asked.

“Uh-huh, this is Maya Williams. Newest member of the M.A.D. club.” Kim introduced her.

“Melvin Jameson.” The man told her, offering his hand. “I’m in charge of keeping this place up and running power-wise.”

“Uh, it’s a pleasure?” She said, taking the man’s hand despite not knowing why she was here. Hence why she sent Kim a questioning look.

“Right, well I saw you working on that power upgrade last week and I thought that since you seem to have a lot of ‘tech stuff’ with your specialty maybe Mel here could help you out with it.”

“What? I, I don’t want to bother him.” She argued, (and she really didn’t.)

“It’s no bother.” Melvin told her matter of factly. “It’s the job of older members to help out the newer members.”

“But, but what about other new members?”

Melvin merely snorted at this. “We get one, maybe two new members a year.”

“It’s part of the reason everyone in the club knows everyone else.” Kim added with a bittersweet smile. “There really aren’t too many of us here.”

“To be expected, when M.A.D.s make up less than a percent of the population.” Melvin nodded. “Either way it means I’m free to give you a few tips until you get your feet under you.”

“But still I don’t want to waste your time when you’re working.” (As much as an M.A.D. teacher could probably help me.)

“Look, if anything you’d be the one helping us out here.” Melvin admitted.

“What do you mean?”

“You see I can only really come in on the weekends, so having someone who can patch up the grid while I’m dealing with my own stuff would help the whole club out.” Melvin explained. “At least if you’re as good as Kimberly says you are.”

“Oh, well that isn’t a problem at all.”

---

(Uh, didn’t we just drop DM-1 off yesterday?) Her inner passion asked as she once more made her way through the trainyard.

“Yeah, but… it, it never hurts to have more resources.” She pointed out. “Besides we still haven’t given the grav-pack a hard test.”

(Right…)

From there it didn’t take long for them to draw the attention of their little drone, even if he was supposed to be hiding during the day.

“Hey, DM-1, maybe we can help each other?”

The little drone tilted his head in his own version of, ‘How so?’

“I need a lot of scrap to test one of my inventions, so I’m wondering if you’ve found a pile of scrap anywhere that you can’t collect by yourself?”

DM-1 paused for a moment to process her request before nodding and scuttling off.

Taking that as her que to follow, she made her way after the little drone before finding him standing in front of a large pile of semi-rusted metal.

(Can we even use this crap?) Her inner passion wondered.

She paused for a moment, reaching for one of the numerous metal-based ideas she had fluttering through her head to try and draw out the whispers. Eventually they responded, telling her that she could salvage the metal for her purposes.

“Yep we can use this.” She nodded, sliding off her grav-pack. “We just have to fit it all in here.”

---

She tossed her grav-pack onto her lab table, before rolling her shoulders.

Even if the upgraded backpack let her carry more weight, it didn’t change the fact that she still had to carry that weight all the way to her lab. (At least I could ride the bus most of that way.)

“So how are you two doing today?” She asked her littlest minions as they wandered up to her curiously.

1B began making a lot of exaggerated expressions as he told her about everything they’d been up to since the last time she’d seen them, and (I have no idea what he’s saying.)

(You are not alone.)

“That’s nice.” She told 1B while rubbing a finger on his head, before turning to the less expressive LCM. “How about you, what’ve you been up to 1A?”

The little critter waved for her to follow him before scurrying off to another part of her lab.

“Urgh, more walking…” She groaned, following her minion.

(Oi, isn’t that supposed to be the other way around?!) Her inner madness cut in. (Our minions are supposed to be following us chica!)

She rolled her eyes. (Oh, shut up…)

Having made her way to the cabinet 1A had wanted her to see, she watched as the little critter pushed the door open to reveal a small bed made from a piece of scrap metal filled with shredded paper that her minion stood next to proudly.

(I just realized we never built our minions a living area.) Her reason realized.

“That’s, that’s a fantastic bed 1A.” She cheered the minion, while suppressing her own feelings of guilt.

(We’re a shitty boss and our minions should not do a goddamned thing we tell them.)

(Not helping!) She told herself bitterly, before realizing something. (Actually…)

“While you’ve built a lovely bed here, you two probably need a couple of other things if you guys want to live comfortably.” She told her minion, as the whispers took what little she knew about rodent care and extrapolated from there. “Want to help build all of it?”

1A seemed to get an excited look on his mousy face as he nodded rapidly.