Morning came around and Zoey was in the kitchen she shared with Roxy looking for a snack to keep her going until her first break in the laundry. Roxy was sitting by the table with some coffee, reading the morning news on her tablet.
"Damn it Roxy, you did it again." Zoey grumbled.
"What?" Roxy asked.
"The pop tarts, you opened every packet and ate everything but the blueberry." Zoey moaned. "Look, there's four boxes here and all of them only have blueberry."
"So?" Roxy asked.
"How hard is it to finish one packet before you open another?" Zoey asked, grabbing a couple and shoving them in the toaster.
"Zoey, you like blueberry, what's the big problem?" Roxy asked.
"The problem is once you open the packet, they start to go stale, so you're only meant to open one packet at a time." Zoey responded, trying to open the cabinet to get some sugar, but forgetting for a moment her hand injury. She recoiled as she felt the sharp pain from her scald. "Damn it!"
"You OK?" Roxy asked, before noticing her hand. "Wow, what happened to you?"
"Stupid accident in the laundry." Zoey sighed. "Sorry, I guess I'm in a bit of a mood."
"No, it's alright, I…I can't believe I didn't notice it last night." Roxy replied apologetically.
"It looks worse than it is." Zoey assured her. Even though the pop tarts thing did irritate her, particularly when occasionally it meant she had to throw out stale pop tarts because the packet had been open too long, it wasn't as though it was a life-threatening thing. It was right up there with some of the other irritating things that went along with Roxy's laissez faire attitude to 'organisation'. She wasn't even feeling too badly about the injury. The sad fact is living most of her life without medical insurance meant she was more than a little used to just grinning and bearing it when she was hurt or sick. She was still more upset by the stupid mistake that had led to it in the first place.
"Well that's good, because it looks like you cooked yourself like a lobster." Roxy said, looking a little uncomfortable.
"OK, first of all, nice bedside manner." Zoey responded a little bitterly as her pop tarts finished heating. "Second of all…sorry. I'm not really mad at you, I just can't believe I made such a stupid mistake."
"What happened anyway?" Roxy asked her.
"I wasn't paying attention and I didn't close the press before I activated the steam." Zoey told her.
"Right…and that's bad I take it." Roxy said. Zoey put the pop tarts onto a plate, before sitting down with her and pouring herself some coffee.
"No, we usually encourage people to blast themselves in the face with scalding hot steam." Zoey replied before she could stop herself. "Sorry, sorry I know, it's myself I'm mad at so I shouldn't take it out on you. I know you've got your own stuff going on. How is all that anyway?"
"It's…still hard." Roxy admitted. "The new weapons' systems are pretty cool though."
"New weapon's systems?" Zoey asked her.
"What, do you think we're going to fight bad guys with gleaming smiles and puntastic one-liners?" Roxy chuckled. Zoey just stared at her. "What, you can do sarcasm because you part-boil yourself and I have to take it but I don't even get one?"
"Fair enough, I guess I earned at least one." Zoey admitted. "So…weapons systems…anything cool?"
"I'm sure you'll see them on the news soon enough." Roxy replied. Technically the details of the weapons and equipment the Rangers would use were classified and talking about them was a very serious matter, but Roxy figured that it was only really important they kept details like how they worked under wraps. Pretty soon the Power Rangers were going to be running around in brightly coloured suits and driving around in brightly coloured, very large vehicles so it wasn't as though people weren't going to notice. She still took the precaution of leaning in closely and whispering. "They're letting us use the simulator to train us for the Zords."
"Zords?" Zoey asked. "Oh man, you are so lucky. You have no idea how jealous I am."
"They are pretty cool." Roxy admitted. "There's one in particular that I really quite like. I mean…if I get chosen and…"
"Will you stop that? They'd be mad not to choose you!" Zoey reassured her. She did regret it slightly when she saw a slightly pained look on Roxy's face though. "You do…want to be chosen, right?"
"I guess." Roxy replied sadly. "You know, it's like…I know what the rules say. I guess, there's still part of me that thinks, you know, screw this. Maybe if I didn't get chosen or if I just said screw it and walked then Ravi and me could…"
"You'd do that for Ravi?" Zoey asked. "I knew you guys liked each other, but…it's that serious?"
"I considered it." Roxy admitted. "But then Ravi reminded me that if I did that, if I quit and someone else was chosen and something awful happened."
She took a deep breath.
"If someone else was chosen, and something terrible happened, if someone got hurt or worse, I'd never be able to live with myself." Roxy told her. "If someone's watching Ravi's back, who better than someone that loves him more than anything?"
Zoey got up from her seat and made her way around, hugging her. She could see that it was tearing her up inside, but she could understand what was going through her mind.
"If someone's better than me, if someone would do the job better then I could live with that, but…I just have to do the best I can you know?" Roxy asked her. "Just to be sure."
"So, tell me about this weapons system." Zoey told her. "You know, just what I'll see in the news."
"Well, it flies so that's cool." Roxy told her.
Elsewhere in the city, Mayor Daniels was in his office at city hall, fielding some calls from some constituents. He always liked to make at least some time available so that citizens could speak to him directly.
"You don't need to worry." He said as he smiled, listening to the caller on the other end. A delivery was just coming in, someone with a coffee and a pastry box. He was such a workaholic he rarely left the office at lunchtime unless it was for a business lunch, and he was a big supporter of local small businesses, regularly getting deliveries from delis, bakeries and cafes all over the neighbourhood. He gestured the delivery person in. "I can tell you with a hundred percent certainty that the Doves will not be going anywhere. I just signed the extension to their franchise; the ink is barely dry. You will still be able to see some of the best basketball in the country right here in Coral Harbour for at least another four years. Yes, I'm glad too. Thank you for your call."
He hung up the phone and clapped his hands as he looked to the box. He handed some cash over his shoulder as he opened it.
"This is my favourite delivery of the week. Ooh, I just love this pecan pie! The absolute best I've ever tasted!" He said. "You should tell your boss that."
"I would if I worked for him." An all-too-familiar voice said, as the cash was thrown back onto the table. Mayor Daniels just rolled his eyes as he turned around to see the delivery person pulling off her cap, letting her hair spill down. "Muriel Reeves, Channel…"
"I know who you are Ms Reeves." Mayor Daniels groaned. To say that they had met many times would be putting it extremely mildly. Muriel Reeves was a dogged, determined and irritatingly persistent journalist, but she was most known for being stuck in a cycle and rut of celebrity tittle-tattle, loopy conspiracy stories and soft news events. She had strong ambitions of breaking out of that and being taken seriously as a hard-hitting reporter, but she always just fell short of getting that Frost/Nixon moment she clearly dreamed of. It sometimes led to her taking some pretty drastic steps, and it wasn't the first time he'd had her escorted out of events or places she wasn't meant to be by security or put in calls to her station about her. "You're leaving right now."
"Mayor Daniels, I just wanted to talk to you about Morph-X…"
"I have spoken many times at great length about Morph-X and the boon it will be to this city." He responded as he went to his phone to alert security. "I just hope for your sake you didn't hurt the real delivery guy."
"I paid him fifty bucks for her vest and told her to take a break." Muriel told him. "I just want to ask you…"
"Hello, security?" Mayor Daniels asked. Muriel put her finger on the hang-up button. Mayor Daniels just stared at her.
"Now that's crossing a line." He told her.
"Look, I just want to ask you about Morph-X and all the promises it makes." She told him.
"I've seen the pitch; I've even seen a practical demonstration." He assured her. "I would not allow the development of a technology in this city that put my constituents at risk."
"Do you know where this power comes from?" She asked him. "Where they get it? What even is Morph-X? Have you seen anyone drill it or distil it?"
"If there are any questions, I will answer them to a real reporter." He told her. "One who is not dangerously close to getting arrested now leave my office while it's only security I'm calling and not the police!"
"I have a testimony here from an anonymous source, a whistle-blower if you will." Muriel told him, putting a report down on his desk.
"Yes, and I'm sure there are a million just like it all over the internet, now are you going to leave before…?"
"My source claims that Morph-X comes directly from the Morphing Grid." Muriel interrupted him. Mayor Daniels just suddenly froze. He was used to reporters, he was used to inflammatory statements and questions all designed to provoke a reaction for that 'gotcha' moment that would cement their career at the cost of his own, but even he couldn't stop his body language betraying how he felt about what he just heard. "You hadn't heard that?"
"The Morphing Grid?" He asked her. He saw her reaching for her phone, no doubt to start recording, and immediately his media-training kicked in. Rule number one, never answer any question unless you knew and had proof for the answer…or at least that the proof was so difficult to find that you couldn't be confronted on it. "I think Ms. Reeves you've been dealing in conspiracy theories too long…"
"So, you're saying that it's not possible that Morph-X is drawn from…"
"Ms Reeves, there has been no Ranger teams in this world for two decades! As far as anyone knows the Morphing Grid has never been a factor in this world since then." He snapped.
"Mayor Daniels…"
Just then, the security team arrived. They had responded because although she hung up on them, he had called. Needless to say, getting a call that was cut off directly from his office was taken as a bad sign. They saw her and put their guns away.
"Seriously, again?" One of them asked.
"Mayor Daniels…"
"Please escort her out." Mayor Daniels told them.
"Mayor Daniels, please I just want…"
"GET HER OUT OF HERE!" Mayor Daniels yelled. The security team were about to grab her, but she already knew when the situation was hopeless. She didn't want to give them any excuses to get her arrested. She dutifully collected the hat to return to the real delivery girl and sighed.
"Enjoy the pie." She told him as she walked out the room, followed closely by the security team. Mayor Daniels was just pacing to work off his frustration.
He found his eyes drawn to a picture frame on his desk. He couldn't take his eyes off it. Muriel was annoying, she was pushy and she was so desperate for her big break that he wasn't sure how far she would go to get that big scoop that would put her on the mountaintop. But unfortunately, the one thing she had done, as much as he'd never admit it to her, was she had pushed a few buttons that now caused him pause to think. Grid Battleforce was still very cagey about the details of what they were doing. They never did tell him where Morph-X came from or how they got it.
He picked up the picture frame and stared at it. He had no idea if this was just another of her crazy, straw-clutching conspiracies, but…was it worth taking the chance?
Back at the base, the assessment panel were watching the cadets on the simulators. They were giving them a week to practice before they put them through their final testing.
They now only had five cadets for three slots. It made the decision easier, but also more difficult at the same time. There were still going to be two people going home empty-handed, having been within touching distance of perhaps one of the greatest honours and responsibilities there could be, and so the assessment now as much as finding who was the best individually was trying to find a team, people that could work together and create a unit that was stronger than the sum of its parts.
Blaze stepped off one of the simulators, allowing one of the others to take up the position. He could see the assessment panel watching them all carefully, checking on them as they went through a series of scenarios designed to test them in every aspect of how the Zords would work. He was confident in his performance so far, but he knew that there was still competition to go ahead. Two people going home meant two chances he would have to explain to his father why he, why any Winchester, had failed in anything for over four generations.
"Nice moves on that last run." Jason said to him. "That last move? Where did you pull that from?"
"I don't know. I guess sometimes instinct just kicks in." Blaze said, trying to downplay his performance. He always wanted to sound casual, like he was never really trying even when he was about to give the last ounce of himself to a task. It was kind of a defence mechanism that he, and many others in his family had built up. If people didn't think that they were trying, then it meant that on the very few instances they did fail or fumble, no one really saw it as terribly much of a surprise since they didn't seem to care or try in the first place. Of course, when they did succeed, it only looked all the more impressive and frustrated their opponents all the more and made them look all-powerful and untouchable. After all, who really needed to know that to become the World Karate Champion he'd trained until he passed out more times than he could count as long as they believed that he wasn't even trying.
"Instincts good, it got me through a good few scrapes back in the day." Jason agreed with a nod.
Blaze watched some of the others on their runs. They were all looking pretty impressive. Too impressive for his liking. He wanted a strong team in the end, but ultimately that meant he needed to be on it in the first place. There was just too much potential in this group, and someone had to go. Once five became three…he could relax a little.
"So, what do you think of the prospects?" Blaze asked. Jason just looked to him.
"Dude, you don't really expect me to answer that do you?" Jason asked him with a little laugh.
"We're not meant to discuss the assessment with the candidates." Carter reminded him.
"Well, I wasn't asking for scores or anything. Just…you know…general impression." Blaze responded, realising he was dangerously close to exposing the intent behind his questioning. "I mean, I look around and all I see is people we'd be lucky to have as Rangers."
"I agree." Jason responded. "Frankly, it could be any of you."
That was just what Blaze didn't want to hear. He wanted to see if there was anyone that was causing any doubts. He didn't like gambles, the only bets he liked were ones where he was the only option.
"I'm just…going to get some coffee while I wait on my turn on the Copter." Blaze told them. "Do any of you want…?"
"We'll be fine Blaze." Commander Shaw told him. Blaze just left the control room, heading to get some coffee while he considered what he was going to do. When he got into the hall though, he found one of the other cadets, and from the looks of him he wasn't looking for coffee. He was looking around, but it looked a lot more like he was looking around to make sure no one was watching him. Blaze went to the nearest vending machine and started making a coffee selection. Eventually the other cadet seemed to decide no one was watching them and moved on. Blaze followed her at a safe distance. She got to an almost deserted part of the floor, and after looking around once more to see if she was being followed, she pulled out her cell phone holding it next to a lock. Blaze watched as it sprang open and she slipped inside.
He followed her as she closed the door behind her. He tried to open it, but it was locked. That was when he saw the sign on the door.
"The mainframe room." Blaze said to himself with a little smile. "Now, that is interesting."
With that, he headed back to the main lab.
"Commander Shaw, General Burke." Blaze called out. "There's something I think you need to see."