It was the day after the wager, everyone was exhausted, especially Zhackary who managed the entire program. All had taken their day offs since the majority of Cipher members, too, were beaten by Keisha almost to their graves. Although, there was an exemption, and that was Jaden’s department who were scheduled to meet with the other biotech department heads and members from their allied factions.

But before all of that, their day began with a breakfast; the Vista siblings stayed together inside their made-up home. The atmosphere was filled with utter oddness after both of them realized that someone had been absent the whole day.

They stared at their food which was dull looking, more like losing its colour and taste; it was filled with emptiness which they felt this whole time. The sudden gusts of wind blowing from the open windows made their food more unenjoyable. Thus, not even one of them would dare eating it at all.

Jaden took his deepest sigh then spoke to his spaced-out sister, “You have any idea on kuya Zhack’s activities for this day? It’s kinda unusual of him to forget to have breakfast with us though.”

Keisha had not yet returned to the domains of the ruthless beings, so Jaden snapped his fingers in front of her as loud as he could to regain her consciousness. Her eyes widened afterwards and by that certain action, indicated us that she needed repeating.

“Have you said something?”

Her brother rolled his eyes though he quite understood where she came from. She must have been worrying about the person she wished to be with and to care about. He, too, felt the same thing as well as it concerned him that his sister was anxious about it.

“Should we pay him a visit and bring him our breakfast instead?”, he spoke to her and her face quickly lightened up but it’s not that obvious to be noticed by someone she really wasn’t close with. “I still have an hour before our 2-day pre-game fieldwork with the other factions. He must’ve been restless from all the work these past weeks.”

Keisha let out a sigh of desolation after realizing that she had not prepared good food. She blamed it on her nose suffering from certain allergies that wasn’t even stopped by the mad experimentation of Rhianna towards her. Gladly, Jaden was always there to provide what she needed; the treatment, of course. It worried her a lot because she couldn’t even manage to taste the food well, so she had to let Jaden help her with her cooking.

“I think Zhack’s ill”, later, she bluntly told her companion after deciding that she would prepare a hot soup for him.

“What? How do you know about it?”, Jaden asked her, surprised by her words with certainty.

Minutes passed until the soup would finally boil to its delightful aroma that filled the entire room. It was as if they were preparing it for a customer in line inside a restaurant.

“I just felt it, that’s all. All I could feel were chills and fuzziness ever since I woke up this morning. I could even feel a painful headache every seven minutes specifically”, she said as she handed him a spoon containing the soup they were making together for a taste test. “If I was the one who’s ill right now, I wouldn’t even force myself to wake up but to rest instead.”

“I must agree with you though, since ate Rhianna and kuya Shino said that they were sure about the upgrade they’ve done with both kuya Zhack and you”, he replied and consumed the soup from the little spoon and his taste buds celebrated on the success of their cooking. “Dang, you still perfected our Sinigang recipe! It actually tasted like mom’s.”

Keisha smiled after hearing her brother’s praises, especially that she’s now positive that Zhackary would like it – although we’re all aware that Zhackary surely appreciates everything that she does.

“Let’s go?”, she spoke confidently after packing all the food to be brought to Zhackary’s room.

Jaden nodded agreeing with her then they went straight to Zhack’s.

…

*At Zhackary’s*

Jaden was full of shock out of his sister’s accurate prediction – it is as if they were connected as one. Zhackary was indeed sick, wrapped by thick blankets; all red and unwell. The siblings ran towards him to check up on him.

Jaden confirmed, “I think he’s got the flu. His temperature is way too hot and he’s chilling a lot.”

“If I may, do you have any over-the-counter medicines you brought with you? If so, please hand it to me so that I can treat him after we eat”, Keisha kindly asked him. “He’s aware of our presence, although he might have lost his ability to even move or speak. Even with the absence of a thermometer, we can identify that it’s not just a simple cold.”

Accurately, Zhackary has been wanting to at least speak but was unable to. All he could do was to let out a stare, yet even his stares couldn’t even make him see anything clearly. Voluntarily, Keisha wrapped her arms around him to at least give him warmth while Jaden, on the other hand, prepared their meal and set up the table near them.

He poured the hot and aromatic soup they made into Zhackary’s favourite ceramic bowl and handed it to Keisha. He began eating his own packed meal as well as his time to rest was almost running out.

Noticing his elder sister assisting the Cipher’s head to consume his soup rather than at least eating something while tending to the ill fella, he spoke to her worriedly, “Ate, aren’t you hungry? You’re not even touching your food.”

She did nothing but smiled, “I promise to eat later. I need to treat Zhack first. And you… you should hurry up now because you only got five minutes left to head to the waiting hall with your colleagues. A department head mustn’t be tardy, ya’ know.”

Jaden also responded with a smile after confirming that his sister was all in good shape, “Oh yeah! I almost forgot. OH SHIT! They gonna be kicking me out if I do.” He hurriedly slurped his food then picked up his packed lunch and backpack.

He stood up as he ran towards the exit of the room and said, “Take care of him, okay? And don’t forget about yourself too! See you in two days, ate.”

“I surely would not, dummy. You too, don’t ever forget to take your medicine or else you’ll have trouble sleeping again. And… please be careful around foolish women, okay?”, she reminded her brother as he left the room with the two of them alone.

After minutes of being silent, Keisha finally heard Zhackary’s groans as a little response. Not a little while after taking his medicine and sweating a lot, he began to speak bit by bit. He was actually forcing himself to at least stand but Keisha restricted him to do so. She was just too worried of him and had an urge to take care of him until he’s fine and well.

“You can rest now, Keish. I feel a bit okay now”, he told the young girl sitting beside him whose hands were fixed onto the smartphone’s screen to play some 8-bit turn-based RPG. “I’m worried about you too. It’s your allergy season, right?”

“Nah, don’t worry about it. I had already taken my pills a while ago before leaving my room with Jaden. What we needed to worry about was you. I called Shino to come over and check on you later so that I can head back to my kitchen to fetch for some food supplies and prepare you food over here”, straightforwardly, she said that surprised Zhackary. It was indeed odd for someone to witness him that she actually cares; just a matter of fact that she’s just too subtle that people could also mistake her as a bad person.

“I won’t sleep nor leave you here until Shino confirms that you’re fine. None could not even lie to me because I’m always a hundred percent certain on what is wrong and what is right.”

Zhackary’s eyes widened out of what he had heard from his companion who volunteered herself to take care of him. And it was at the same time, he felt comfort around her care and never thought of arguing about it at all; in fact, Keisha needed it as part of discovering herself.

“Why would I lie to you?”, he questioned her, and it quickly caught her attention.

“Yeah, why would you?”, she answered back nonchalantly, “But in every circumstance, I will trust you.”

Keisha paused before saying another word, her finger moved to pause her game as well. She tilted her head up where the light could temporarily blind her, then she covered her eyes with her right hand and said, “Even though the darkness will come and consume me again, there’ll always be light somewhere. There will be no darkness if there’s no light… When things get hopeless, I now know where to run. Those blinding lights might hurt, but I am aware that it’s a safe place to stay.”

“No matter how blinding the lights are, the darkness will be too frightened to lay a finger on us”, Zhackary continued as their conversation got deeper and meaningful. It gave them tranquility as they converse.

“Lies are just cover ups and only the truth remains. It’s the same to the void created by darkness itself”, Keisha added, and it put excitement inside her heart. She slowly opened her hand to witness the faint light overpowering the darkness from her sight.

As to end their syncing thoughts, Zhackary ended with a truthful statement.

“The light is the truth. And truth might hurt but it’s accompanied by love.”

…

*At the interim at Jaden’s*

Just in time when Jaden hurried his way to their meeting place with the two of his best department members, the sweetest twins among all, Nikkoi and Nikolai. They have become his best of friends ever since they were assigned to work together. The twins welcomed the lad with a cheeky smile, especially the young girl, Nikolai, who’s jumping up and down out of excitement.

“You’re late mister J!”, she said and approached him. “Deal’s the deal, teehee.”

Jaden rolled his eyes of frustration after losing to a bet. Now, he’s obliged to treat the twins a pint of ice cream each for the rest of the month. He said, “I am still a minute early, you two.”

Nikkoi smirked and spoke through sign language, “But we came here earlier than you so… a month's supply of Pandan ice cream for me.”

Nikkoi was a mute person but had an IQ like Einstein’; an introverted fella with the warmest smile. On the other hand, Nikolai, a social butterfly but an expert in logical reasoning and philosophy. Both have different personalities but were partners in crime. Three of them hadn’t got any language barriers since all were capable of sign language.

“Alright everyone, let’s start…”, Jaden said and started the fieldwork. “As we all discussed during the live call, we gathered today to have a collaboration for essential bioweapon and natural medicine. And as I've said, we are doing this so that we could assist our Philippine military during this war. We all can’t stay sitting here when all of them are sacrificing their lives just to protect us. Before we all begin, I would like to introduce you to our supervisor for today, Miss Rhianna and Sir Shino.”

Everyone turned their look as a girl in her usual lab coat and eye glasses entered. The young woman gently smiled at the representatives from other seven different factions. In return, everyone greeted her warmly.

“Hello everyone, as the supervisor, I hope we all can get along well”, Rhianna said gently while carrying her tablet on her right arm and a stylus on the other, in a gesture that she is a formidable biotech researcher, “Let me add something, I am sorry if my colleague, Shino, is not able to make it today because of an emergency. He is going to make it up for the next time we all gathered once again.”

“That said, we should all start working. We will call a thirty-minute break later for food. We can't all work with an empty stomach. Have a great work guys.” and with Jaden’s permission, all of the members started mixing several liquids and using different scientific tools. The sound of flasks as it hits the others made the situation more serious. Each table was like a science fair, only everyone shared their knowledge with each other. The twins who seemed inseparable worked on a type of plant that can regrow itself as quickly as five minutes. It was to help everyone to regenerate their food faster, as well as other common ingredients for different experiments. Jaden, on the other hand, with the help of other biotech heads from different factions, attempted to do an exploding bean stalk; that when it hits a target using a blowpipe, the bean would explode almost as strong as a hand grenade. And the shrapnel scattered on the soil would eventually become a tree after some time and undergo photosynthesis. At first, it’s impossible because of the bean size, so they have decided to literally turn it into a grenade instead.

After one and the other, the team had their experiments, some failed but some turned out really well, they all came up with these:

Bean grenades

New type of virus that could be injected through blowpipes

A regrowth serum (Helps the plants to grow faster and a 100x better than a fertilizer)

Bloody Smoke Grenades

All of the experiments have greatly helped both war and regrowth. Rhianna was astonished by the successful collaboration of all the factions involved. But there is still a lot of work to do.

“Alright, after these past few hours, it’s safe to say that we succeeded for the first half. Let’s now take a 30 minutes break. Go guys and enjoy the food”, Jaden said and invited everyone for a feast. All of the mad scientists discussed all the facts they found out during the experiments and how they failed in some. It is a wonderful dinner for the rest of the crew as they all enjoy sharing each other’s intelligence.