The three eldest couriers stood in front of the monitor with their boss. Olʼ Skool worked with the turntable to retrace Ed and Fizz's signatures in the map. When the icons disappeared, he went back and forth with the disk to confirm his suspicions.
"They're in Sector Nine."
Burn took a step forward towards the monitor. "But how deep in Sector Nine? Maybe they're still running."
"I was hoping that would be the case, but they would've been back on the map."
"So they're stuck?" Burn pointed to the garage. "Then what're we waiting for? Let's go get them!"
Deets and Loogie nodded. The teenagers marched towards the garage until Olʼ Skool stopped them.
"I'm not risking anyone else until this storm is gone."
"We can't wait that long!" Deets exclaimed to the old man.
"I'm sure they're fine and they can hold out on their own." Olʼ Skool lowered his sunglasses to stare at the group. "If we go while the storm is still going, who knows if we end up in the same predicament as them!" He turned to the monitor. "Their signals disappeared just by entering Sector Nine and I'm not entirely sure if it's because of the storm or some interference set up in the sector." He turned to his crew. "Either way, it'll be good to prevent anyone else slipping away from the map."
Fizz proudly presented her aluminum rod to Ed. It was three old wire hangers twisted around to make a decent lightning rod. There were long strands of two hangers on the base to hold onto the board. "Thanks for the help, Ed!"
He had a few open holes in his gloves after helping Fizz twist the wire hangers around. He shook his hand a bit to waver away the slight sting he felt from touching the tips of the hangers for too long.
"Come on, let's try this out!" She sprinted towards their shelter's entrance and tried to get out, but the mud was too slippery and slid down. She turned to him. "Help me out!"
He trotted towards her and kneeled down. He pulled his arms down to boost the girl. She ran once again—this time towards Ed—and got higher in the air. She reached the outside when she felt the cold rain hit her red hair. The older courier threw his board and it landed next to her. "You can do it!" he told her. "I'll stay here and try to make going up and down here a bit easier."
Ed could see the fear in her eyes when she found out he wasn't going to follow her. He felt bad that he couldn't give her the physical support she needed, so he tried his best vocalizing his support.
"It's okay, Fizz! There hasn't been a flash for a while now, so you'll be fine!" He got closer to the entrance. "Hurry up before you catch a cold!" She slowly grabbed his board and attached her makeshift lightning rod to it. He could tell she didn't want to leave his side in this situation. "You got this, Fizz! I believe in you!"
"That makes one of us…"
"Look, after all we've been through this month, I'm pretty sure you can do anything and it'll work out in the end! You need to trust yourself a bit more; I trust you more than what you trust yourself! I'll be here waiting for you!"
Fizz took noticed that she had zoned out of reality when Ed started talking positively about her. He was fueling her feelings without realizing it. She scorned herself mentally for being so easily manipulated with his words and actions. She kept on falling deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole—depths she didn't realize existed until they managed to get into this predicament.
He also realized how deep he was getting himself into. The problem wasn't what he was saying, but what he wanted to do with her. He wanted to jump out and hug her tightly so she wouldn't tremble anymore. He wanted to run his hands on her wet hair to calm her down. He wanted to kiss her forehead to reinforce her that everything would be fine. He wanted to hold her tight so she wouldn't be afraid of thunder anymore. He wanted to stare at her eyes to see if she felt the same way he did…
Again, they were both in their own world while in the middle of a storm in Sector Nine. She forgot about the cold rain hitting her small body. She forgot the howling freezing breeze making her wet hair stick to her cheeks and forehead. He didn't notice his feet were slightly sinking into the mud while trying to give her all his support.
Fizz slowly moved out of his line of vision. Her face was tinted in red on how embarrassed she felt for thinking about her feelings towards Ed right in front of him. She examined the pile of rubble on top of their shelter to find the best area to climb with the hoverboard. She decided that if a lightning bolt were to fall down on their specific mountain of junk, it would electrocute her makeshift lightning rod anyway because it wasn't connected to the ground. She threw it as hard as her body could to a somewhat decent height and hoped for the best.
She sprinted back to their dugout only to find Ed was making some stairs out of old car doors and robotic arms. He stuck the materials to the mud and stood on top of them to confirm their stability. He didn't notice Fizz looking down at him from the outside of their shelter. She was in awe of his resourcefulness. Maybe Ed was either smarter than what he showed or his innate abilities as part alien technology kicked in.
"Fizz, why are you staring at me like that?"
His voice broke her out of her trance. Her cheeks were once again tinted in embarrassment as she stared at his big blue eyes. Her involuntarily high pitched "Huh?" surprised even her. "I-I… was… admiring your great idea?" she spoke slowly at first before ending the sentence with so much confusion to what she had said. She smiled nervously at the end.
This was going to be a long mission.
