"You are impossible!" Bree exclaimed as they exited their fifth store already that afternoon with only a couple items. "Is there nothing you like?"
"I told you, I'm not going to be one of the pretty boys from your magazines," Spike snapped in response.
Bree shifted the few bags she carried to her left hand, grabbing her phone from her back pocket and checking the time. "It's already after six o' clock, so we should get some dinner," she announced, looking up and around for somewhere to eat. She spotted a couple small restaurants that she wouldn't mind eating at, asking the youngest bionic "Do you want sandwiches or tacos?"
"I don't want sandwiches," the app said bluntly.
"So tacos it is," Bree shrugged, taking the lead again. It wasn't long until they were waiting in line with numerous other hungry shoppers, trying to decide what they should eat.
Spike stared at the menu above the counter, perplexed by what all he was reading; he didn't know if he liked most of the meals, including tacos. "What are you getting?" he asked his older sister.
"I think I'm going to get the Mini Taco Twins," Bree answered. "What are you going to get?"
"I don't know," Spike muttered, looking back up at the menu.
After a moment of Bree also scouring the menu, a smirk grew on her face. "You could try the challenge: the Extreme Fire Tacos," she teased.
"Okay," the app said nonchalantly without looking at her.
Bree blinked in surprise, saying "Seriously? I was only joking."
"Why not?" He turned to look directly at her, scrutinizing the middle bionic. Bree felt as if she were being x-rayed; upon consideration, she noted that he really calculated what was going on around him and who was with him at all times. There was no surprising him. A true war machine.
Returning her focus back to the conversation at hand, Bree explained "That's one of the spiciest meals around; it's a challenge for a reason."
A look of determination crossed Spike's face, a small smile on his lips. "I'm no quivering coward; I'll take the challenge."
"If you insist," she said with wide eyes and a look of incredulity.
When it was their turn to order, Bree took the lead, saying "Hi, I will have a Number Four with a small root-beer, and my brother will do the challenge, with –" Bree turned to Spike and asked "What do you want to drink?"
"I'll have what she's having as well," the app told the employee directly. Spike wasn't quite sure what root-beer tasted like, but he was feeling as adventurous as usual, so not trying it was out of the question.
The employee grinned at him, her teeth white against her tan skin. "You know the rules for the challenge?"
Spike shook his head.
"Okay, so you need someone – I guess your sister in this case – to videotape you eating the Extreme Fire Tacos. You can't have any more to drink than what you ordered, and you have to eat all of it as fast as you can. To be eligible for a prize, you will need to post it on our website, which is printed on the paper basket holding your tacos. Got it?"
"Yes," Spike answered brusquely.
"Alright, good luck!" she said with another grin, and turning to Bree she asked "Will that be everything?"
"Mm hm," Bree nodded.
"Okay, that will be twelve dollars and forty cents, please. And here's your number; your meals will be with you shortly."
The middle bionic paid the cashier, and grabbing the upside-down v-shaped piece of plastic with their number, she and the commando app found an unoccupied table and sat at it.
"Why are there so many rules for this challenge?" Spike asked, looking at Bree intently. He had his elbows resting on the table, his hands together in front of his mouth; the fingers of his right hand drummed on the back of his left.
"Because it's a big deal," Bree answered, letting herself lean against the backrest of her chair. "You have to prove that you did it, and you have to do it right."
"Why?"
"The grand prize is a thousand dollars, and they don't want cheaters to win it. The whole point of the contest is to advertise their food and get people to eat it. They don't want it to be a joke."
Spike looked away, noting the number of people talking easily as they ate their food. He studied them, watching how they ate the hard u-shaped shells stuffed with various ingredients. It looked like a messy process.
His thoughts were interrupted by another employee who walked up to them, and the commando app looked up to watch the young man set the food and drinks onto the table and scoop up their number. "Enjoy your meal," he said in a tone that obviously lacked enthusiasm before walking away from them.
Spike looked back to Bree, who was staring at him with a smirk as she grabbed her phone. "Alright, are you ready?" the bionic girl asked.
The youngest bionic raised his eyebrows, picking up the first tiny taco of six. They were even smaller than Bree's two half-sized ones.
"Good luck," Bree said, pressing the button that would start recording him. Spike heard much of the conversation die away into frenzied whispering, and upon quickly glancing around he saw that there were a number of people watching him. It wasn't everyday that someone took the challenge.
Spike looked back at his taco, analyzing the food. It was stuffed with ground meat, peppers of some sort, and a mix of cheeses. He could smell the spiciness of it, and he grew wary of what he was about to put into his mouth.
Here goes nothing, the commando app thought to himself as he took his first bite. He immediately choked, his mouth and throat feeling like they were on fire. His vision grew blurry as his eyes watered, his face flushing deeply and sweat sprouting on his temples. Holy shamole! This stuff is blazing hot!
He forced his gag-reflex to quit, chewing and swallowing the taco as quickly as he could and shoving in another bite before he lost the nerve. Everything around him seemed to have melted away, and all he could think about was the flare of pain from his taste-buds caused by the Extreme Fire Tacos.
Time also slipped away from Spike as he scarfed down taco after taco, feeling as if he barely breathed through the ordeal. Upon swallowing the last bite of the flaming little tacos, he practically dived for his drink, sucking down the bitter beverage that sweetened as his taste-buds cooled.
He became more aware of his surroundings as he relaxed, the spiciness slowly fading away. There was clapping and a few cheers all around him, a bright grin on Bree's face. "You did it, Spike! That was amazing!"
The app's facial features were graced with a slight smile as he pushed the empty basket from his meal back away from him. A small laugh escaped him before it was followed by a groan of relief as he laid his head down on his arms, waiting for the rest of the burning sensation to disappear. He made sure that he rubbed away any stray tears onto his forearms.
Heaving a large breath, he sat back up, rubbing the warm skin of his face with his hands. He was certain that it was bright pink, if not beet red.
Bree was typing on her phone furiously, and a minute later she broke into another grin, turning her phone around to show the youngest bionic what was on the screen. "It's on the website now – you currently hold the record for the fastest time!" she said excitedly.
"How fast?" Spike asked, squinting at the screen.
"Two minutes and forty-two seconds. That's about fifteen seconds faster than the fastest time!"
The app's expression grew smug, and he reached for his root-beer, slowly sucking it up the straw as he fingered the firm foam of the cup thoughtfully. He had been pretty great, he decided.
Bree picked up one of her two half-sized tacos and began eating it – quite frankly – ungracefully. Her fixings of lettuce, tomatoes, meat, and cheese slipped out the back end of the yellow corn shell, piling into a haphazard mess in her paper basket. But she didn't care; compared to the way Spike ate, she was the poster-child of cleanliness.
When she had finished, Spike broke the easy silence, asking "So what now?"
"You need to make up your mind about clothes; we don't have much time left, so if you don't want to look like a nerd, you need to find something else," Bree answered wryly.
The app looked away, drumming his fingers on the table. He seemed to do that a lot. Without turning back to her, he stood up from his seat saying "Then let's get going."
Bree followed his lead, grabbing their trash from the table and trailing her brother's alter-ego out of the restaurant, throwing away the trash on their way. She stared at the back of his head, thinking about how if she didn't know better she might think that she was following Chase.
But when she looked at him closer, she realized that there was something off, something that was not Chase. The way he walked with confidence, keeping his head held high, his muscles tense, and his shoulders squared. His posture made him seem a little taller.
Throughout the years she had had mixed feelings about the app. On one hand it was funny to watch her nerdy little brother suddenly turn macho without him even knowing it, but on the other hand this macho version could be a real handful – a real danger.
But not this afternoon. This afternoon he was as a normal person, even if there was an aggressive and arrogant flavoring to his personality.
Over the last week he appeared to be more and more like his own unique person, fully and completely unrelated to Chase. It seemed that it was not Chase with his annoying and frightening bionic ability, but Chase and an entirely different person, Spike, sharing a body. Even though this thought kind of freaked Bree out, she also gained a new respect for the younger bionic.
"Where are we going to next?" Spike asked in his deep gravelly voice that had become the norm of late, pulling Bree out of her thoughts and back to the present.
"I don't know," the older bionic said honestly. "Let's just keep our eyes open and see if we come across anything."
Spike nodded, turning back away to scan the stores to his right. Bree also looked for a store that would interest the app, but she invariably found her eyes drawn back to him. The commando app was his own person, and he wasn't so bad.