The lad gives me that look, the one I know means trouble "Hey Brunts, you ever think you`ll fall in love?"
I let one eyebrow hit the roof as I finish assembling the carbine in my hands, keeping eye contact and finishing the weapons reconstruction without averting my gaze from his; "You`re shitting me, right?" I reply, dead panned. The others chuckle softly.
"Well why not?" He pauses, almost looking thoughtful "I mean your attractive, strong, sooo clever and such as born leader, I bet you could pull anyone!" His sarcasm is not unusual, but grating none the less. He flinches as I cock the carbine, the barrel suddenly aiming at him, calming slightly seeing my hands off the trigger piece.
"Maybe because we`re on Julian`s top ten to fuck list kid? I mean think about it, the Resistance want us dead, the government want us dead, who could any of us realistically gun for? A rogue Mobian?" I bite back, activating my safety and slotting the gun into my rigging.
I meet his gaze for the last time his eyes ever left that helmet "Or were you planning to pull tonight with that pretty face?"
"John?" Cream repeats, looking at him curiously. It only takes her a second of looking at his eyes to know he`s gone, blanked out to some distant moment of the past. It showed though the blown pupil, engulfing his iris entirely. She decides better than to wake him and walks over towards his laptop on the desk, opening it and tapping into her account.
The email from Sally still sits there, unopened on her notifications from the system along with its four siblings, all with hard-line subject lines. It doesn`t take her a second to shrug off the urge to open them in favour of checking John`s open storage. The sight takes her back to when he first let her into his personal section, the wry smile with a hard edge as her tersely replied to her constant request for knowledge into his past.
When he caved she had expected to see horror, pain and war. Instead she was greeted with images, writings, diary`s and short videos from years upon years in time span, child to now. She was still in his thirteenth year, seeing for the first time the transference into Julian`s genetic modification process. She went to click open the next file from her last session when John turned jerkily, his face worried.
"We need to move, now" he states, shielding his eyes as the pupils contract back to a normal size.
She doesn`t question, a moment listening is all it takes for her to hear the steps on the stairs, the attempted subtlety of the team closing in on their hideout.