Much Awaited Call

Alexis and Natalia got out of the Raider 01 and then quietly headed back towards the tunnel. A dim sunlight was still out, guiding the girls who were trying to make their way out of the Dead Zone without anyone noticing them.

After they reached in front of the tunnel, they strapped their torch lights on their head and put on their masks. And then they crawled back inside the tunnel.

And within another 15 minutes, they were out in the P-99 Street. As the area was too close to the Dead Zone, the area almost looked like it was abandoned. Very less people had business there, so Alexis and Natalia were able to get in and out of the tunnel without getting noticed by anyone.

Natalia was dancing as the two of them were walking back towards their home. Natalia felt like she had just found a new purpose in her life, i.e. repairing the vintage battle craft.

Alexis was happy that she was able to help Natalia by finding something interesting to take her mind off of other things. "Are you that happy that you need to dance while you are walking?" Alexis pushed Natalia with her hips and laughed.

Natalia almost tumbled on the road with that friendly push from her friend. "Hey, you are stronger than me remember? I almost landed flat on my head." Natalia tried to exaggerate what actually happened.

"Oh please! Don't act like you are too fragile." Alexis puckered her lips and continued, "But yeah, I keep forgetting that my body is different now. I keep worrying that I might accidently put another hole in my wall."

Natalia suddenly remembered something and then turned around on her heels to face Alexis. But Alexis was walking too close to Natalia and the two girls almost bumped their heads on each other.

"Watch out Nat." Alexis shouted as she was startled.

"Sorry." Natalia grinned and continued, "Hey, didn't you say you wanted to practice controlling your abilities?"

Alexis nodded and then replied, "Yes. But I don't have any suitable place to do that. My home is too small and apparently my fire can blow a hole in them. So, that doesn't leave me with anywhere else."

"Hey, remember when I said Liam is from P-21 Street?" Natalia smiled widely showing all her teeth.

Alexis was confused because of the smile that Natalia was giving her. "Yeah, I remember. But what does that have anything to do right now?"

Natalia started to stroll ahead and Alexis followed her waiting for an answer.

After contemplating for some time, Natalia finally spoke, "Well, turns out Liam is a rich kid. He has a flat of his own in P-21; he shifted there so that it would be near to the Academy. And rest of his family lives in P-2 Street but they are mostly traveling around the world because of their family business. He mentioned that they own quite large area in P-2 Street. So maybe… you can ask him to let you practice there."

Alexis knitted her brows and asked Natalia, "But what exactly am I going to tell him? Does he know about my powers? Have you told him?"

Natalia sure did have a bigmouth but she was not that absent minded to go around spilling such sensitive secret of her best friend. "Lexi, you know I wouldn't spill your secret to anyone unless you yourself want to. So I have not told him anything about you."

But she thought for a while and said, "Umm… I might have told him that you have changed, but I have not given him the details of how you have changed. He just thinks that you get angry very easily nowadays."

Alexis stared at Natalia from the corner of her eyes and sneered, "So you basically made him believe that I turned into a bitch. Great!"

But Natalia immediately defended herself. "Hey, what else would I have told him then? That you are a mutated human with superpowers? That's not my secret to tell so sorry if I disappointed you."

Alexis realized that what Natalia said about her was very true. She did get angry even at small things after discovering her superpowers. She placed her arm around Natalia's shoulder and tried to cheer her friend, "I'm sorry. I got angry again, didn't I?"

Natalia nodded her head. Then she whispered dramatically while waving her hand up and down as if she was a fortune teller, "Hmm… you might have already tuuuurned into a bitch!"

"Hey…" Alexis could not help but laugh because of how she said that.

They didn't realize that they were already near to Alexis's house as they were laughing and talking while walking back. "Oh! We have arrived already?" Natalia looked around to see the familiar locality.

"Maybe this is the after-effect of walking in that tunnel. It does feel like we arrived here sooner. Sure does feel good to be able to freely walk on two legs instead of four." Alexis opened the door of her house and invited Natalia in, "Come in, and let's talk inside."

Before going upstairs, Alexis grabbed some snacks and brought it along with her to her room. As soon as they entered the room, PIA greeted them both. "Welcome back Alexis. Good evening Natalia."

"Hey PIA" Alexis greeted her back and started to settle down on her bed. Then finally she switched on her cell phones.

"Hey PIA, I hope you are doing well." Natalia casually tried to strike a conversation with PIA.

PIA immediately replied in her robotic tone, "Yes, I have been doing well. I even made a friend yesterday."

"Oh! That's nice to hear. And what is that friend's name?" Natalia took out her cell phone with intergalactic reception and turned it on.

PIA was excited to share news about her new friend because she never had one before. So she started to speak in a cheery robotic voice, "He is very nice. His name is…"

But PIA was interrupted in between when Natalia shouted, "Oh my god! There are 5 missed calls from dad. I waited for all day and he called me when the phone was switched off?"

Natalia immediately called back her dad, somewhat afraid that she might have missed her chance to talk to him. She tapped her feet on the floor while the outgoing call was ringing. "Pick up dad…" Natalia was restless again.

Luckily, she heard a voice from the other side, "Hey Nat, sorry we kept missing each other. I hope I didn't make you worry that much."

Natalia finally stopped tapping her foot and sat on the bed beside Alexis, who was voraciously eating all types of snacks right now.

Natalia finally heaved a sigh of relief when she heard the voice of her dad. "Hi dad, no I didn't worry that much. I assumed that you were busy with something. What happened though? You didn't call me in the morning."

"It's a long story but I had to enter a different space-time zone, so I could not keep track of the time so well. And I also had some other things to attend to." David did not want to go into all the little details. Because if he told his daughter that he was attacked by unknown species then it would only make her worry about him.

Natalia was surprised and she repeated what her father said, "You entered a different space-time zone? But why? Weren't you supposed to explore around Canis Major for a month?"

David scratched his head and slowly said, "Yes, I had to tend to another emergency situation. I am in C-31 right now."

David was trying his best not to give out all the details. Then he suddenly remembered about Vorian and tried to steer the conversation away, "And hey, you never told me that Alexis has a boyfriend called Voria Zadoc here in C-31."

Suddenly Alexis stopped stuffing all the food in her mouth and turned her head towards Natalia in shock. "How does David know about Vorian?" She mumbled with lots of food in her mouth.

Natalia shrugged her shoulders as she was equally shocked as to how her father found out about him. "How did you know about Vorian?" Natalia asked with curiosity.

"So he is her boyfriend… I met him here in the base. And he introduced himself to me. He said he recognized me because I look like you." David laughed after saying this because usually it was the way around, people would say that Natalia looked like David, and not that he looked like Natalia.

Natalia felt happy because Vorian had the courtesy to introduce himself to her father. "Vorian is a nice man. Oh! I have told you about him before. He is that same guy who brought Alexis to the hospital, remember?"

Alexis raised her brows as she munched on her snacks because this was probably the first time she heard Natalia praising Vorian sincerely.

"Right! Now I remember. So he is that same guy huh!" David looked at his watch and said, "Nat, I gotta go right now. I will keep calling you. And say 'hi' to Alexis from me."

"Sure. Bye dad. And take care." Natalia ended the call with a smile.

Finally, she was happy to know that her dad was okay. But still she knew that her dad was hiding something. "What could have been so urgent that they arrived to C-31?" She thought to herself. But she knew that it might have been something confidential so she did not try to pry it out of her father.

Natalia quickly glanced at Alexis and grabbed a snack packet from her. Then as she munched she got back to their original agenda. "So, are you going to tell Liam about your powers? I am not forcing you to though. It's your decision."