CHAPTER 6

When I woke up, I felt tired mentally and physically, but this'd been the most energized I've been since I arrived here. I took an ice shower. I mean, literally, it had small shards of ice in the water, This being the ice age 2 and all.

I got dressed while Mia scarfed down the food. I ate my breakfast in a few bites I wasn't very hungry and started running toward the design room, I didn't notice Mia's foot as she was leaning towards the floor, and tripped, and toppled over a few trophies and stuff, and sent them crashing over, I turned back to see Mia scowl.

"Sorry", I shrugged, "I didn't mean to topple these things over."

It's fine. She said, then she turned her back towards me, cupped her hands towards her mouth and yelled, "JANITOR! THERE'S A MESS IN THE TROPHY ROOM! COME HERE IMMEDIATELY!"

Then she ran off giggling and gesturing for me to follow her, I was in a daze from falling down. I must've hit my trophy on my head or something… "ouch" I muttered and ran in just in time while Mia was yelling, think she went through the corridor on the right side. We ran towards the design room just in time before the janitor caught us. We had a hearty and contagious laugh just before we went into the design room.

Tisha was standing there with the others, she seemed to be giving a nasty glare to the others. I guessed for taking me into designs

"You're late", she snapped. "I can't accept this!"

"I overslept," I said hoping that she would believe me. Which was kinda true though. But I didn't want to say I disassembled the whole trophy room, or I'd go back to being a maid.

"Late on her first day," She said saltily, I bet she was jealous. "I don't think she'll do you much good." saying that, she stormed out of the room.

"Welp, that was a good welcome." I said, giving a sarcastic smile. I awkwardly stood there for a few seconds, until a weird goth-ish guy in everything black, so I couldn't make out what he was wearing, all I seemed to notice pair of black jeans, and a black hoodie, seemed to imitate batman, came and sat down in a chair beside Mia's, He opened his mouth to speak, and said "Hello!"

I don't know why, but I half expected him to yell out "I'm theBatMan!" Cringing at myself and my thoughts, I had the urge to yell out Hello! Bootleg BatMan! So, I opened my mouth to say something, but Mia glared at me like she knew what I was thinking. So, I decided to stay quiet and put before I caused any damage.

One of them said "what material we will use for the dark matter drive's protective cover.?"

"WAIT A SECOND! HOL' UP! DARK MATTER DRIVE? I thought BURNE was the only one who owned the Dark Matter Drive." I was confused, Even my Mom, An astrophysicist, never told me there were other dark matter drives with anyone other than BURNE, BURNE was one of those few agencies which never revealed its full form.

" She doesn't know anything about us, does she?" Bootleg Batman asked the others. "Lemme explain it to you. BURNE had created a dark matter drive for their new rocket . Then, aboard the Ice-Age-2, Our recovery team headed to the BURNES' base and recovered, haha" ,he paused for a sarcastic laugh, " No, STOLE the Dark matter drive. Here we are today! Living life in hiding because BURNE wants the Drive back, and we're building a ship to escape this universe in the meantime"

I was awestruck for a minute while trying to down all of the information without choking on it, while Mia and Bootleg Batman, and the others discussed metals. Did Tisha lie to me about the world crashing into the other planet? I guess she did, I didn't wanna work in the ISTACES anymore, I felt like a… Criminal, no, the correct word was, a Transgesser. I am a transgesser. Guilt was tripping me over until Bootleg batman snapped his finger, and asked "Ice-age to Natalie?" I woke up from my thoughts.

"Tungsten will be the best," one of them spoke. "I think it might be even better than original metal and titanium as well"

"Why don't we add all of the top 5 strongest metals out here," I said with a sigh, because I didn't like where this was heading, "We put the Strongest layers on top, and the softer layers in the middle, and back to the strongest layers, It would be like a barrier, protecting it from any burning debris, even better than titanium or tungsten plainly would." And the discussion went on, But hey, I'd done my part, it's time for theirs, Well, Then people started choosing my idea, and My idea worked.

But, discussing wasn't the worst part, It was making all of the workers work without slacking off, It'd been a tiring day. The only time I had some rest was at break time before lunch. Mia and Bootleg Batman were walking towards me like I stole a pen from them or something.

"Uhhh, hey!" Bootleg Batman said, "I'm Isaiah Ilana, I already know your name though. Natalie Wilson, I heard you introduce yourself yesterday . Wanna be friends?"

��Uh… sure!" I said cringing a bit, probably not showing enough enthusiasm, which caused him to give a slight frown. We kept asking each other questions till the cafeteria. I'd completely forgotten Tisha's possible lies, until I saw her walking with Marcus towards the Library. I didn't wanna eavesdrop, but my curiosity was fighting over my instinct. It won over.

"Hey, I think Marcus and Tisha are talking about something important, wanna listen?" I provoked them, Hoping it would work. They nodded, so we walked over towards the library, and hid behind a door, and then, nobody was there, so we decided to walk slowly and hid behind one of the bookshelves…

"Marc! We can't tell them why we started ISTACES. Or we'll get killed!"

"Huh, but what about the others? They need to do this in secret, or everyone will die!"

Isaiah gasped, as if he'd understood what they meant. I shushed him, And we ran outside trying to make the minimum amount of noise possible. Not me though, I toppled over a book.

"What was that?" Tisha asked, probably scared.

"I don't know, Lets just go to the cafeteria so won't be suspicious" Marcus replied.

I ran outside trying to maintain no sound at all, Then took a few breaths as if I had Asthma, and didn't get my medication.

"No.. what is PAOMAS hiding from us?" Isaiah asked.

"How would I know?" I said frustratedly, I tried to change the topic, "Just forget we heard this conversation, And let's go have Dinner, I'm starving!"

Isaiah shrugged, Mia muttered something that I couldn't hear. Eh, who cares about what she's thinking about right now. I sat at a spot I found with Mia and Isaiah, and we downed our food. After waving bye to Isaiah, we were walking towards our room,

"Hey," Mia smiled "uhhh…. Natalie, You did well today!"

I smiled. I didn't care what PAOMAS and ISTACES were for… I was having a good time with my newly found friends.