The next day, the kids once again woke up and got ready for the day. This time, they assumed positions in helping install Milo's new invention.
Taro, Kai, Vida, Chase, Amora, and Akilah helped move the devices to the places that Alex marked yesterday. They were tall pole like objects with a base similar to that of a walkthrough metal detector. They placed about two dozen of these devices around the perimeter of the compound.
"What do these do, exactly?" Akilah asked Amora and Chase as they both shrugged in response.
Alex just so happened to walk up when Akilah asked.
"Milo calls them Cloakposts." Alex rolled her eyes at the name as she continued. "They're supposed to hide the Spirit signature of the compound's Spirit users."
"Speaking of Milo, where is he?" Taro asked.
"Oh, he went to get some more supplies for the Cloakposts." Alex pointed out of the main door.
Deep into the shopping district of D.C, Milo left a tech store as he put his haul inside a bag on the back of his bike. He paused for a moment as the TV's in the window of his store caught his attention. A news reporter spoke on the screen.
"If you are in the D.C. area, be aware of rumors that are spreading about an incident involving a Correctional Officer trying to kill a child. These are just rumors, trust that the Correctional Forces would not tolerate such behavior if it was true. Those who are spreading these rumors are not true patriots, they are dissenters and should be treated as such." The screen cut to a weather forecast as the news reporter straightened her papers.
"Who would believe that?" Milo mumbled to himself as he kicked the stand up on his bike.
Milo rides past a Correctional Officer who seems to be taking his lunch outside of a burger spot.
"Hey, sir." The Officer waves Milo down as Milo's heart skips a beat.
Milo reluctantly walks over to the Officer, ready to put on his best "There is nothing suspicious" impression.
"Sorry to bother you, but I just need to ask any civilian I run into if they have seen any unusual behavior around these parts. It's part of a citizen's duties to report any suspicious behavior to the Correctional Forces, you know." The Correctional Officer smiled as he waited for an answer.
"Um, I don't think I have." Milo kept it short and sweet.
The officer stayed quiet for a second as he stared at the bag on Milo's bike.
"Oh, that's nothing. Just stuff for an arts and crafts project of mine." Milo smiled nervously as the officer hesitated for a second.
"Alright then, well let us know if you've seen anything, especially in the factory and shopping district. Alright, have a good day and bless this nation." The officer smiled.
"Y-yeah, bless this nation." Milo made his way down the street as his face grew fearful.
"They zeroed their search down to two districts?" Milo thought. Even worse, they were on the right track, as the compound was made of an abandoned factory from the factory district.
Milo raced his way back to the compound to tell the rest of the residents as he calculated how long they had left until they found the compound's exact location.
Back at the compound, the kids finished up their part in helping around the compound.
"Alright, now that we're done, ready for some good news?" Bloom said as she wiped her hands off.
The kids turned in surprise as this seemed to rejuvenate their energy.
"What is it? Vida asked. She hoped that it was something about training.
"Jessica said that today should be me and Alex's last day needed for recovery. Which means we can get back to training tomorrow!" Bloom smiled as the kids cheered.
"I hope Hendrix will join us." Kai looked around to see if he could spot him.
"I haven't seen him in days. Has he even been doing chores?" Chase crossed his arms as he thought it wasn't fair that he didn't see Hendrix helping.
"He's been getting up three hours before you guys. By the time you kids are waking up, he finishes up his part and goes off to who knows where." Alex's words surprised the group.
Vida thought about why this would be happening. She hoped it wasn't because of what she said to him in the greenhouse. Or maybe it's because of the fight all together.
"Even if he did join us, his injuries were worse than ours. He would have to watch on the sidelines for another couple of days." Bloom reassured Vida that it probably wasn't her fault as she saw Vida ponder.
Hendrix fell on his back in exhaustion in the middle of the courtyard. He had to take off his shirt to bear the mid-day heat, revealing some of the extra tattoos he got from the group's mall trip.
He got up and held his arms out as the strings expelled from the top of his forearms. He thought about the song Mr. Frewin taught him as the strings vibrated and moved in a pattern that mimicked the melody of that song.
Hendrix brought the strings back in as he fell back down. He still hadn't recovered fully, so he wasn't worried about the duration of his attacks, even though he told himself that he needed to train through it. What bothered him was that the strings moved in the exact same way every time.
He thought that the song was the key to getting the strings out, but maybe it could be any song. Hendrix thought back to another song Mr. Frewin showed him. It was always special to Hendrix as it was by the guitarist he was named after. It took a few seconds but he remembered the melody.
"Crosstown Traffic," Hendrix mumbled the lyrics as the strings came out and moved entirely differently from before. The strings vibrated the melody that Hendrix was thinking of.
This time, instead of the slow and curvy movements the strings made before, the steel moved jaggedly, in a sort of controlled chaos.
Hendrix jumped and cheered as the strings retreated back into his forearms. He felt like he found the secret to the universe.
"I can do that with any song." He thought. It would only be trial and error before he had a song-movement for every situation and direction he would ever need.
Hendrix's stomach grumbled as he thought about the last time he ate anything at all. He put his shirt on and headed to the cafeteria.
Once he got there, the other kids immediately caught sight of him. The kids waved him down and gestured to him to come join them at the table. Before he could react, he saw Vida get out of her chair and start speedwalking over to him.
This scared Hendrix. The last time she did something like that he got slapped in the face.
"Where have you been?" Vida sounded concerned more than mad, to the surprise of Hendrix.
"Oh, uh. I've just been busy." Hendrix let out a little smile out of nervousness.
"Doing what?" Vida leaned in for a closer look as Hendrix leaned back and blushed.
"You're sweating." Vida said as she squinted her eyes.
"Just helping around, y'know." Hendrix messed with his hair nervously.
"Hmm." Vida said as she scratched her hair while she thought to herself. "Anyways, come sit with us." Vida grabbed Hendrix's hand. It reminded him of how she used to drag in around when they were kids.
Vida and Hendrix sat down with the rest of the group.
"Where have you been, dude?" Akilah asked jokingly.
"Oh, y'know." Hendrix said. He didn't know why he wanted to hide the fact that he was training.
"Okay, well let's talk about the giraffe in the room, then." Chase spoke with a mouth full of food as he pointed at Hendrix.
"Again, it's an elephant." Akilah rolled her eyes.
"Hendrix isn't an animal, dumbass. Anyways, we start training tomorrow. Are you coming or not?" Chase waited for Hendrix to answer as Akilah rubbed her brow in frustration.
"Yeah, I'm in." Hendrix smiled. He had been waiting for that moment. He didn't feel like wasting time when he had heard that the compound was on a countdown. He couldn't afford to be weak the next time the Correctional Forces came knocking.
On the other side of the cafeteria, Alex and Bloom listened to Milo stutter over his words as he tried to recover his breath after running up to them.
"Okay, calm down, Milo. What are you trying to say?" Bloom grew concerned as she heard 'Officer' through his rambling.
"Okay, so I thought that the Forces were still stuck on a quadrant of the city, but they somehow zeroed it down to two districts. My estimate of six months goes down to three months, at best. Once they take the shopping district out of the equation it's only a few weeks before they find us." Milo spoke in one breath as he sweat through his collar.
Bloom and Alex looked at each other with dread.
"We just finished installing your gadgets. That'll help, right?" Alex said.
Milo looked relieved for a second.
"Yeah, I'll trigger them on in a bit. That should delay their efforts for a couple of weeks." Milo sounded hopeful but not entirely optimistic.
Alex rubbed her forehead. Bloom grabbed her hand.
"It'll be okay, honey. We'll be okay. Let's just try our best." Bloom smiled as Alex let out a slight smile in return.
Alex and Bloom got up from their seats.
"Turn the Cloakposts on, we'll all try our hardest to help you." Alex patted Milo on the back as Alex and Bloom walked away. Milo didn't let out a smile, he was far too deep in thought for that.
Alex and Bloom made their way over to the teens' table. Akilah had Chase in a headlock as Amora stole both of their apple juices. Vida and Hendrix both laughed with Kai and Taro as they poked fun at one of the residents at another table.
"Alright, guys." Alex's words scared the group into a frozen state as they all tried to act normal.
"Who's ready to train tomorrow!" Bloom cheered herself on as the kids cheered too.
Chase, Kai, and Taro all made their faces of superiority as they felt more confident than the others, for some reason
"Meet me at the gymnasium, no later than 10." Alex let out a little smile, the most they had seen her smile, as the two adults walked off.
Vida smiled at Hendrix as he smiled back. Hendrix didn't know how she would react to Hendrix's control of his Mode. He winced at the thought of her still being scared of it.
"You guys need to catch up to me and Kai, already. I'm tired of beating his ass over and over again, it's too easy." Taro laughed.
"Hey!" Kai said in retaliation.
The kids finished up their lunch and made their way back to their rooms to pass the time playing cards and watching VHS-taped movies on an old TV that Milo found at the tech store in town.
By the end of the night, all the kids said goodnight to each other. They all knew how excited they all were to get back to training tomorrow. Hendrix thought about if he was even at Kai and Taro's level yet as Taro's humorous remark repeated in Hendrix's head.
After a while, Hendrix knew that he wasn't going to be able to sleep with all of this on his mind. He got up and out of his bed and walked down the hall to the balcony that overlooked the rest of their district.
Surprisingly, he found Vida looking out on the balcony. She was focusing Spirit in her hands, letting it glow green. She looked disappointedly at her hands.
"Why do we always have the same idea?" Hendrix laughed. Vida jumped and turned around to see who just scared her.
"Oh, you scared me." Vida smiled.
"What were you doing just now?" Hendrix pointed at Vida's hand.
"Oh, just the basic training we did." Vida stuck out her hands as they glowed green again.
"You haven't thought about the next step yet?" Hendrix asked.
"I have. It's just hard to bring LIFE into something I can hold, y'know?" Vida looked down at her hands as they continued to glow.
"You're gonna try to make it into plants, right? I know you've always loved them." Hendrix smiled.
"Yeah. There's so many, and they're all so different. On top of that, I wouldn't know how to use it in any meaningful way, I mean I-" Vida started to ramble as Hendrix stopped her.
"Hey, quit that." Hendrix went silent for a second as he didn't think that far on what to say.
Hendrix looks back up at Vida as he finds the words to speak.
"We all start somewhere. If there's too many plants, then just start with one. Make that one useful and perfect, then we can worry about the others. Maybe like this one." Hendrix picked some of the greenhouse plants' leaves stuck in Vida's dreads as he smiled playfully. Vida laughed.
"You always know what to say." Vida smiled as Hendrix blushed.
"Alright, well talking to you made me tired. Goodnight, Vida." Hendrix yawned as he made his way back to his room.
"Goodnight, Hendrix… Hey wait, made you tired? What's that supposed to mean?" Vida laughed as Hendrix looked back and smiled.
Vida looked out at the city one more time. She noticed Correctional Forces cars moving through every street like scavenging ants surveying the dirt around their mound.
"It's only a matter of time." She thought.