Base

"I'm fine, but my foot isn't," Jack sighed, placing the now-useless machine on the bed. "It's dented at the bottom. It won't balance. I need to use a wheelchair... There's one in the closet, I think."

Fernando picked up the metallic foot. "Is this what you used? Kinda primitive..." Turning it over a few times, a smile grew and he seemed to wake up. "Are you cool with going to school in a wheelchair?"

"Which reminds me," Fernando muttered, exiting the room in rather a hurry with the metallic prosthetic. He returned a few moments later with a metal briefcase. "Ok, so I was tinkering yesterday while I couldn't sleep, and I thought these up." Holding up the case so that everyone could see, he revealed its contents; a small chip and an earpiece, paired together. "Since I imagine we all have smart-phones, I took the liberty of designing a chip that will interconnect our phones to the base's database. This way, we can always be in contact with each other and the base. Also, everyone has an earpiece, which I integrated with a gel substance. It'll seamlessly fit into your ear and blend with your skin tone. Now we can hear each other throughout the day. What do you guys think?"

Fernando smiled, glad that his genius was appreciated. "Well, I made them in a hurry, so the best I could do is designing it like a SIM card. Just take out the SIM card you have in your phone and pop it in." He set the briefcase on the bed and demonstrated this with his own phone. "Just click the side panel of your phone and it comes out easy. Then you put my design in, and there you go! There's an app that will be installed in your phone automatically. It might take up one gigabyte, so I'd delete a few of your selfies," he added with a chuckle. Putting his phone in his pocket, he took an earpiece and placed it in his right ear. "After a few minutes, the earpiece will become harder to notice because the gel will imitate your skin color. You can turn it on from the app on your phone. Can you believe this just took three hours and WikiHow? A personal best, honestly."

Jack snorted, imitating the procedure and taking a look at the application. "Really, Nando? The engineering is fine, but the coding on this is primitive. Give me an hour after school and I can make this a lot more convenient for all of us. And what is it with all of the Comic Sans?" 

"Well, it's my pleasure," Fernando said, smiling like a little kid. "Let's just be happy I couldn't sleep, right?" He chuckled nervously, a faint red appearing on his tan cheeks. He coughed nervously and turned to Jack. "Yeah, Jack, you can edit that. I can't code to save my life! And Philip," Fernando started, walking over to the boy and putting his hand on Philip's shoulder. "You'll be able to hear us, but I haven't found an easier way for you to communicate with us yet. You can text us through the app, but I know that has its limitations. Sorry."

Philip shrugs, grabbing his notepad and pen from his pocket. That's okay, he writes. I've become somewhat of an expert when it comes to texting in class. For talking to friends, that is.

"Um... sorry to change the subject, but do you have a first aid kid somewhere? I think I cut my foot," Maya asked, attempting a laugh and favouring one of her feet as blood continued to drip from the other.

As Lauren was leaving, Victoria brushed through the door with the broom and swept the accumulated pile of lamp shards into a dustpan. With the whole team on it, the cleanup effort had taken less than five minutes. Let's hope we're just as efficient together on missions!