A/N: A cookie to anyone who knows where I got this chapters title from.
Chapter 7: A Return to Normalcy
(May 3rd --- 28 day after Outbreak)
"I really need an assistant," Jacen said to no one in particular, since he was the only one in the room. He had been working night and day with little sleep for almost a month now and was starting to get worn down; but he kept going. It could be worse, Jacen thought to himself, if I didn't have other people running specific parts of the school I would have to do everything.
Jacen leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, just taking a moment to relax; but a moment was all that he got because only a second after he closed his eyes someone knocked at the door to his office. "Come in," he said wearily as he sat up and did his best to look presentable.
The door began to open slowly, creaking as it went. "Hello Jacen how are you to-" Mrs. Lipinski stopped mid sentence, seeing exactly how he was doing. "… Wow, you look like crap," the biology teacher commented; teachers had become more and more casual, slowly abandoning the self restraint they had used while in the presence of students for so many years.
"Thanks," Jacen replied mordantly.
"You know you really should thing about getting some help, running all of Intrepid is only going to get harder as we get bigger." Intrepid was in fact the name of the micro nation that had been Bestine Academy; the voting process had taken forever but Jacen hadn't had much other choice. In the beginning the teachers where watching him like hawks, just waiting for Jacen to do anything that could be considered tyrannical in nature. After Jacen showed that he was in fact doing a good job of it, many did loosen up and allow him space to breath. Of course not all of them had; some thought that -as adults- they should be running the show; that specific handful of teachers formed a group of their own, being led by none other than Mrs. Petri.
Jacen nodded. "I was just thinking the same thing before you came in. So anyways, what's up?"
"Oh nothing much…" she began innocently, and then paused for dramatic effect. "I just thought you would like to know that the communal bath is done."
"Thank God!" Jacen exclaimed, feeling refreshed by the news. It was a big deal; the water system had gone out about a week after the outbreak, making the building's shower systems useless.
Mrs. Lipinski smiled, clearly proud of her teams accomplishment; the communal bath had been her first job as head of sanitation and she had gotten it done with surprising speed. "Yes, it is a large step towards preventing disease. But what I want to know is if you have enough electricity to power it already. We're ahead of schedule; will the grid be able to handle us?"
Jacen sighed and began digging through a pile of papers to his right. Ah, here it is, Jacen thought to himself as he pulled out the most recent report from Mr. Kornak; the environmental sciences teacher who ran Intrepid's entire power grid. "It says here that fifteen of the twenty five exercise bikes that we have are converted and plugged, they are being manned eighteen hours a day in shifts."
"The bath will need six of those to power it."
"That can be done," he began, slightly taken aback by how much power this thing needed. "I suppose I could convince Melissa to lengthen the amount of time she trains people on the bikes."
"How is that going by the way?" The biology teacher asked casually.
Jacen yawned and ran a hand through his hair. "It's a big job, running training programs for a couple hundred people buts so far she has been doing an excellent job of simultaneously getting people into shape while training the Defense Force and Police in Krav Maga."
Mrs. Lipinski nodded and looked at her wristwatch. "Well I suppose I should be going, we are going to do a test run this evening…" she began, before getting a far off look that indicated something had just occurred to her. "You should get a few of your friends and come by; what would be better than having Jacen and company breaking it in. Plus you look like you could really use it. Bye!"
It's an interesting idea, he mused as she walked out the door, god knows I need to relax. Jacen looked back to his pile of papers and was reaching for the first one when Mrs. Lipinski called to him from the hallway. "You have a visitor waiting to see you."
"Great," he muttered to himself. "Well come on in then," Jacen said, much louder in his usual cheerful leader voice.
A small girl walked in, covered from head to toe in soot. "I was sent to bring you to the forge -cough- if you would please follow me -cough- I will tak-"
"No, that's ok," Jacen interrupted as he got up from behind his desk. "I know the way, now why don't you go down to the nurse's office and get that cough checked out; oh and tell the nurse that I said to give you a handful of surgical masks for you and everyone else in the forge to use," Jacen added kindly before the girl ran off. Thank God the bath opens tomorrow, Jacen said mentally as he thought about how dirty the girl had been.
The halls are still crowded, Jacen noted as he walked towards the forge. This had been a normal thing for the last month, but a few days ago the head of the history department had been looking over a schematic of the campus and found that there was a bomb shelter from the cold war under the 'mini-lake' that connected the boys dorm, the C building, and the girls dorm. All they had to do was tear down a wall that had been built over the entrance and they had access to both dorms.
There had been the issue of fortifying the dorms, but that was accomplished with far fewer casualties than when they had secured the school. Yet two more names for the wall of hero's, Jacen thought sadly before quickly replacing the thought with a better one, well at least we don't have to use bucket brigades any more. People who had been in the bucket brigade had the most dangerous job in Intrepid; every day they would make a run for water in the open, guarded by people from the Defense Force. Thankfully such actions where no longer needed to since they where able to install a reverse pump by drilling through the top of the bomb shelter and creating a line directly to the water.
As he reached for the doorknob to the forge, it suddenly swung open, slamming right into Jacen's face. "Sorry," a deep voice called as a boy ran off down the hall holding a wrench and some duck tape.
"Where's the fire?" Jacen asked as he entered the forge rubbing his hurt nose.
"Not fire; water-" a voice to his right said before cutting off abruptly. "-where's the water," another almost identical voice finished matter-of-factly.
Looking towards the source of the sound Jacen found the Carlson twins, both their faces blotched with soot like the messenger who had told him to come down here. Each was wearing a heavy duty blacksmiths apron and, like all of their other clothing, they had personalized it so that Kat's apron had a sun and Erika's had a moon. "What are you two doing here," he asked in bewilderment. "And what was that about water?"
"We are the head apprentices, so it would make sense that we would be here," Kat explained teasingly, in one of twin's rare moments where one of them spoke a full sentence.
"And the boy you ran into was Matt, he was heading to fix the leaking reverse water pump in the bomb shelter… you know that thing is too complex for its own good," Erika added with a hint of annoyance.
Jacen glanced around the room. "Where is Mr. Spada? He sent a messenger telling me to come down."
The twins looked at each other and giggled. "Mr. Spada is off having a much needed break, but-" Erica began, leaving her sentence open for Kat to finish. "-he didn't send for you, we did."
"Oh, ok…so what's up then?"
"We wanted you to see the first finished batch of swords." Erika said as the two separated to either side of a table they had been standing in front of. Jacen approached the table and looked upon the twelve symmetrically laid out weapons as the twin's watched his every move, waiting on baited breath.
He picked up the nearest one and unsheathed it from its wooden scabbard. It was a modified Roman style gladius; slightly longer than normal at around three foot two. Jacen had wanted Katanas but quickly found that making a useful one was beyond their grasp at this point.
"We have a test log set up if you want to try it," Kat blurted out, no longer able to contain her anticipation; Erika gave her a stern look. This is good for them… they are finally becoming individuals, Jacen thought approvingly.
"Sure, I would enjoy that," he said diplomatically. They led him to a back room where there was a small log sitting up on the table and waited in the doorway as he approached the log. Jacen lifted the sword up and slashed downward in a horizontal cut; the blade embedded itself three inches into the wood. Much to his horror Jacen found himself automatically trying to figure out how far the sword would go into a zombies head or neck.
Jacen pulled the blade out and examined the edge where it had hit the wood. Still looks as good as new, he thought to himself. "Good job." The twins looked overjoyed, and for once Jacen was pleased to see it wasn't hero worship; they where just happy that their work was satisfactory.
As Jacen walked to the door he stopped, remembering what Mrs. Lipinski had said. "Oh I forgot: This won't be announced till later today but the communal bath will open tomorrow, only…"
"And?" they asked in unison.
"-I have also been invited to a special private test run tonight and was told to bring friends; So I am inviting you two and all the other people in the forge to reward you all on a job well done. Of course Gina, Olivia, Kelsey, and all the others will be invited as well," he added to maximize the effect.
Kat and Erika jumped up and down in excitement. "Yes!" they screamed in unison, acting as if they just won the lottery.
"Ok well I'll be going then. Have a good day, and give Mr. Spada my compliments." Jacen said as he left, the twins still cheering with glee as the door shut behind him; he yawned as he walked away. Now to get myself an assistant... after I check on food supplied