Dekka sighed. It was the morning after her day out at the beach.
Typically, she'd woken up in a foul mood. Dekka couldn't believe she had wasted a whole day at the beach messing around. Talking to the dweeby nerd Computer Jack. Dekka had enough to do which did not include doing 'nothing'.
She should have been working. Or talking to Brianna. Or more likely trying to persuade Brianna to talk to her. Dekka sighed again. It seemed like she never did anything fun.
After breakfasting, Dekka stepped out of her cabin only to find Jack standing outside.
'Hi, Dekka,' he said. Oh holy crap. Why did HE have to be here?
'Hi Jack, bye Jack,' said Dekka, breezing past.
'Do you want to come with me to the fields?' Jack asked enthusiastically. God, that guy was so retarded! Couldn't he take a hint?
'No Jack. Today, I am going to do something WORTHWHILE.'
'Oh yeah? Like what?' Jack said. 'What do you count as worthwhile?'
'I don't know, doing work for Sam, or talking to Brianna or something…'
'Brilliant!' Jack beamed. 'I can tick all of those boxes!'
'Yeah, cool. May I ask how, or is that too much to ask?' Dekka said cynically.
'Well, I'm gonna do something, I'm gonna be doing work for Sam, and I'm gonna be talking to Brianna….' Dekka's head whipped around.
'Brianna will be there?'
'Yeah, Brianna's great at helping out like that.' Dekka groaned. She could see clearly the pride in Jack's face as he talked about Brianna.
'Ok, I'll come,' Dekka gave in, 'As long as it's not some kind of 'Brianna and Jack lovey dovey show'.'
'Er, yeah, no. Brianna's not like that.'
Dekka gave in and walked up to the fields with Jack in pleasant conversation.
Every time Dekka went to the fields, she was struck by how efficient Sam and Edilio's system was. It was cool to see all of the children working hard but happily to provide the whole town with food and shelter.
Sam jogged up to them.
'Hey Dekka, Jack,' he said. 'What do you two want to do today?'
'Wherever you lot need a strong guy,' Jack laughed.
'Ok, what about the apple orchards?'
'You mean you can't even pick apples now?' Jack looked unimpressed.
'Well, you could lift the little kids to reach the apples we can't reach,' Sam explained.
'Ok. Count me in!' Jack said.
'How about you, Dekka? Where do you want to work?' Sam asked.
'She can come to the orchards with me,' Jack offered. Dekka and Jack walked away.
'Brianna always works in the orchards,' Jack said as soon as they were out of earshot.
They were soon hard at work, Jack picking up the littler kids to grab the highest apples and Dekka catching them. It was fun (ish) work and soon there were many baskets of apples beside them.
'Edilio!' Jack yelled. 'Can we have a runner?'
'What's a runner?' asked Dekka. She normally worked on the construction site, so didn't know much about how the orchards worked.
'Oh, you see all these baskets of apples? Well, they've got to go back to the vans. So a runner is someone who carries them back and forth. I do that sometimes with the heavier stuff.'
'Well, the baskets are all full. What shall I do?' Jack grinned.
'This is the wonderful time when we've filled all the baskets and the runner hasn't arrived yet. Also known as lunch break!' All the kids working in their section cheered and scampered down the trees.
Soon the field was full of children sitting on the grass, laughing and playing, all eating apples.
'Aren't we meant to hand in the apples?' Dekka asked dubiously.
'Well, yeah, but one of the privileges of working in the food sector is you get to take a cut. And it's actually efficient - because it saves the time it would take to go home. Come on, stop worrying and take an apple!' Jack wheedled.
Dekka grabbed an apple and sat down on the soft grass. Jack was already munching his. It struck Dekka that when Jack wasn't fiddling with technology, he was actually an OK guy. Maybe they could be friends.
'Why did you come to Sam?' Dekka asked. She had realised that she knew the gossip about Jack, but not much other than that.
'You mean, why did I leave Caine? Go to the 'goodies' as people call them?'
'Yeah.'
'It's not the nice, heroic story everyone thinks it is,' Jack said grimly.
'Come on! You can't tell me that and then not tell me the rest!' Dekka whined.
'Ok then… You know Diana Ladris?'
'Caine's pregnant girlfriend? Yeah.'
'Well, I used to have a massive crush on her.'
'Wait – before you met Brianna?'
'I guess. I'd heard of Brianna, but we didn't know each other. She was just a random girl in another year,' Jack admitted sheepishly. Dekka was not impressed. She'd loved Brianna ever since she had met her.
'So, I had a crush on Diana,' Jack continued, 'because she was, well, the prettiest girl in the school. And then, once the FAYZ came, she found out that I had powers which I hadn't told Caine about. So she blackmailed me into finding Sam and telling him about the poof, so…' Jack noticed that Dekka wasn't watching him anymore. She was staring at a couple of metres away, where Edilio stood with another girl.
'Jack,' Edilio said, 'Your runner is here. Back to work now, OK?' But the girl at his side didn't say anything. She just stared at where Jack and Dekka sat.
Jack looked up, and found himself staring into the eyes of Brianna.