A/N: Here we go! Quick note, this chapter doesn't involve actual science, most of it is just fiction... except the Echinodermata and Ctenophora. id suggest, steer clear if the first, but feel free to google the latter! Enjoyyy!
#4: The Science Centre
"Shiiit! She's gonna kill me!" Sky muttered to himself as he raced across the streets of NewTech City, to meet Z, who was supposed to be waiting for him outside the NewTech Science Centre, the place where Sky was supposed to meet her over half an hour ago.
But a stupid kid in the park had made Sky late, by about thirty minutes, and was sure that Z would be fuming. He was in trouble, for sure.
He quickly raced up the steps of the science centre, up to the platform in front of the main entrance, where he saw the brunette waiting, leaning against the railing, looking over the massive staircase that he was running up.
As he neared the top, he was out of breath, five floors weren't an easy thing, but panting, he ran up, nad quickly reached for the brunette's hand, and yanked her away from the railing, playfully, hoping to make up for it, with a little playfulness, and was shocked when he heard a very unfamiliar voice shriek, and he turned back to look at what had happened. Sky Tate turned redder than a tomato when he realised the girl who's hand he had gripped was a brunette, but she was far from Elizabeth Delgado. Extremely embarrassed, he immediately let go of her hand, and muttered a quick apology, and she walked off in a huff after cursing Sky several times, and Sky just looked at her, embarrassed, while the actual Z, still standing by the railing, watched the drama with a large smile on her face.
"Idiot" she said, laughing loudly, as Sky ran back a couple steps over to her, and grinned, "Sorry about that" he said, running his hands through his hair, something he always did when he was nervous, nad chuckled.
"You're…. LATE" Z said, mad at him, and hit him, on the shoulder, once, twice, and then about fifteen times, after which she cut him some slack, and leaned back against the railing, looking at him.
"Well that was fun" Z said, laughing, and Sky looked at her annoyed, "ok so I mistook another girl for you, don't get jealous, you're still my special dude" he hugged her from behind, and lifted her off her feet, again.
"SSSKKKKYYYYYYYY!" she protested, but this time it was more of a laugh, and she had seemed to stop minding him doing this.
Finally, the two leaned against the railing again, and Z grinned, "You're such an idiot" Z laughed again, "and I'm not jealous!"
"Of course you're not sweetie" Sky replied, echoing Z's own sarcasm.
"Shut up" she said, putting a finger on his lips,
"Make me" he said, and in reply, she elbowed him in the ribs, "OOUUUCCHHH!"
"You asked for it" She said matter-of-factly.
The two then walked into the NewTech Science Centre.
"Why again are we at the science centre?" she asked.
"We are where the tour guide says we are. This place has a Habitat Zone, which has a wide variety of extra-terrestrial plant and animal life, then there's an Astro Zone, which has a whole section dedicated just to the planets, and their systems!"
"Stop geeking out" she giggled, "it doesn't suit you"
He laughed, "Oh I think it does"
"Can we PLEASSSSEEEEE do something else?" She asked, making puppy dog eyes, but they didn't have any effect on the stone hearted Sky Tate.
"I'm the guide, and we do what I say" he said, and taking her arm, almost dragged her into the science centre.
"You're a bully, you know that?" Z commented making a pouty face.
"Give this place a shot, Z, it'll grow on you! It's an awesome place… my mom used to bring me here whenever I used to be upset, after dad…" he trailed off, Z knew what he meant. He didn't need to say it.
"Show me around then" she finally consented.
The ground floor was divided in three sections, the first one that Sky chose, being Anatomy; and so, the moment the two rangers entered the scene, they found themselves staring at a full size model of a human skeleton. Z yelped and shut her eyes, and Sky grinned. He had started out with this section on purpose. It had many, many such gross things, and he was going to have a blast seeing Z's reactions to them all.
Broadly grinning, he led her past the human skeleton, where a biology professor was telling something to his students, who all were intently taking notes.
"Nerds" Z muttered, then looked at Sky, "Like you!" He laughed and let it pass.
The rangers en-route saw an Echinodermata exoskeleton, abd Z shuddered, "what kinda alien is that?" She asked
"Fun fact" he joked in reply, "it's not an alien. It's one of earth's own species, that has inhabited the planet for more than three millennia! Their name Echinodermata is derived from two Latin words, echinos, meaning prickly, and derma, meaning skin, so these creatures were those with really pointy and prickly skins… something like microscopic porcupines! "
"Okay nerd police" Z said, though she was actually a little impressed.
"You can stop calling me nerd now," he said, and she looked at him, looked him up and down, and then making a flirty face, she said, "Hmm… you got the figure of a jock…" she was joking, obviously, and he laughed, "well, this Jock-slash-nerd CAN pick you up and spin you around too you know?"
"Okay if you do that, I swear I'll break up with you!"
"We're not even going out" he shrugged mockingly.
"You can break up with friends" she said defensively.
"Is that even a thing?"
Both of them laughed, and continued walking.
"Oh god!" She suddenly exclaimed, "are these dinosaur and mammoth skeletons real?"
"They are" he replied, looking at the massive creatures in awe.
"There's a primitive planet, discovered a couple of years ago, by Miles and Loretta Callisto, which STILL inhabits these massive beasts! It was called Tapis-7 I think, or maybe Tapis-17. I'm not very sure,"
"Dinosaurs? In today's age?"
"I know right! They can open an actual Jurassic park" both of them chuckled at the idea.
"And if we tame them dinosaurs, mayybe, we can feed them biscuits" Z quipped,
"Oooooooh!" He suddenly said as if he had an idea, "we should go off and discover planets!"
"Or maybe we should continue our tour"
"Good idea" he admitted with an impish smile. He knew the next exhibit was going to make her scream.
He led her through the crowds and asked her to close her eyes, and then when they were standing right in front of the damning exhibit, he said, "open"
She followed, and what followed that, was a loud scream, that made every single head in the whole gallery turn towards the two rangers. The people saw where Sky and Z had been standing, understood the reason for the scream, and turned their heads back to whatever they were doing.
"Like it?" He asked, crossing his arms, and looking triumphant, as if he had taken revenge for every single time she had called him a nerd and hit him.
"WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?" Her face looked like that emoji which has half of its head blue in fear, or shock.
"It's the ACTUAL severed head of a LavaMyater, preserved fully, so that the budding scientists, and students, who are doing the research, can closely see the wounds, what caused them, and what joints are crucial and what are not"
Z was still shocked, "I'm done with this place" she clutched his arm, "we're getting out of here"
"Oh wait Z, the best display is still to come up!"
"What display? Is there anything worse left?"
"No sarcasm, this is the best thing here, at least in this section" he explained.
"Alright" She said, still shaking, and he realised that maybe he scared her a little too much… great! Now he was feeling bad about it. He made a pouty face at himself, and hugged Z, patting her back, trying to get her to calm down, "there there" he said comfortingly, but a little awkwardly, as if he was trying to get a child to stop crying.
A few minutes later, she was okay, and all set to see the next, hopefully not horrendous surprise.
It was artificial display, but it looked very realistic. The most important thing about this display was that… it was simply beautiful.
"These are Ctenophora" he said, quietly, letting her watch the creatures in silence as they floated in the black abyss of a background.
"If they're not real, how are they moving?" She asked softly. For some reason, these artistic copies of the microbes seemed to just mesmerise her, make her feel light and happy! The black background contrasted nicely against their mild electric glows.
"I don't know" he whispered, his eyes fixated on the display as well,
"What else do you know about them, nerd?" She asked, genuinely curious, and he looked embarrassed. Scratching the back of his neck, he meekly admitted, "I honestly don't know anything about these organisms"
"Really? how com?" That intrigued Z, the guy who knew everything about practically everything was here, admitting he didn't know anything about the one display she had asked about.
"Well… you see, whenever I came here, I used to look at this display and my mind just used to be trapped watching them. No matter who told me what to do, I wouldn't remember much. Mom, my science teacher, some cultural integration professor, they all explained something or other about these creatures, but literally the only thing I remember is their names."
"Wow" Z said, she had never seen this side of Sky Tate before, and she seriously loved it. He should talk like this more often.
"You wanna know a secret Sky?" He has introduced her to his secret idée fixe, now it was her turn.
"Hmm?" He looked very interested,
"I'm into poetry" she said and that almost made him jump, "WHAT?"
He found it very, very hard to believe that someone like Z Delgado, the tomboyish girl with a super sassy attitude who had grown up on the streets, would like poetry. It didn't seem like anything in her character.
But sometimes people did have hidden personas.
Look at Sky himself! He was this massive jock, who was a police officer, and trained hard, was by the rules and fot almost perfectly into any jock description. But here he was, geeking out in a science centre.
Not many people knew this Sky Tate. Not many people knew this Z Delgado either. Revealing this side of theirs to each other, somehow seemed to bring them closer.
They stood mesmerised by these Ctenophora, watching current like veins flowing through them, and motionlessly, watching.
Then a few minutes later, they could be found looking through the Zentian Exhibits.
"Zentia is the planet with THE most abundant, and naturally preserved biodiversity in the whole Galaxy" Sky explained, and Z sighed, "nerd police is back" she groaned, and Sky chuckled.
"Do you want me to be your guide or not?" He asked
"Of course I do, I'm just messing with ya! Pulling your leg" she explained and he looked at her, incredulously.
"You know something? Zentians made a biodome about sixteen miles from NTC! We can drive up there, and we can see a Zentian habitat In It's purest form" Sky then looked at her excitedly, "I've never been there before!"
"Wait wait wait, are you referring to the Biodome island? Where many planets have made their biodomes to capture their unique biodiversity and show it to the humans?" Z knew more about NewTech city than she let on,
"YESSS!"
"I've always wanted to go there! I've heard Ogra's display is just BEAUTIFUL"
"The darkest planet in the Currentstream" Sky whispered enchantedly, "they say everything there has a luminescent glow because the light from their star barely reaches the planet, because of a blanket of dark Current flowing over it, and so the whole planet remains under darkness"
"Let's go see that place next!"
"Today?"
"No, some other time, but right now, PLEASE! No more lectures on science and general knowledge! I beg of you"
"Alright" he grinned, "there's an activity centre here, wanna check that out?"
"Only if you don't start hosting Science of the Stupid" She said and he laughed, agreeing. "Physics was never my favorite subject anyway"
In the activity area of the science centre, there was a kids section, and a teen/adults section, the two obviously entered the latter one.
The rangers looked around for something fun to do, AND something that won't break any bones in their body, because most of the activities in a SCIENCE CENTRE had to be based on physics, which neither Sky, nor Z were geniuses in.
Suddenly an activity caught his eye. A small pad stood on a podium, with two handprints, right and left, traces out on it. Over it was a sign, "put your hands here, and get shocked"
"Get shocked?" Z repeated skeptically,
"Just place your hands there, it'll give you a mild electric shock" he said, he had done this before.
"What? NO!" She refused, "I'm not taking an electric shock!"
"It's a small one! It'll just send chills down your spine!" He tried to coax her.
"Sky it's electricity! A million things can go wrong! We can DIE of an electric shock!"
"Z this thing is fully tested and safe! You don't need to worry about it"
She kept on refusing, and finally, Sky, who would never admit defeat, suggested, "what if I put my hand on one and you on the other? The shock will be divided between us, and if something goes wrong we'll die together"
"Real optimistic" she said making a face, sticking her tongue out at him.
"I'd take that to be a yes" he said, she didn't protest, "on three"
"One"
"Two"
"Three!"
And both of them put their hands on the right and left panels respectively, and stood like that for a moment, "See? Nothing happe—" Sky said and the very next moment a tiny electric shock ran through both of their bodies making them both cringe, Yelp and then pull back instantly.
Then the two looked at each other, and started laughing uncontrollably at each other's response to the shock.
"Idiot" She said, still laughing and gripped his shoulder to steady herself, receiving another tiny shock, and she pulled back again.
"Yeah we're gonna be walking wires for a while" he laughed.
"I'm gonna kill you someday" She said, and the two decided to quit the activity Zone altogether, going up the stairs to explore the rest of the Science Centre.
A/N: Sooo... how was it? Plz Reviewww!