Edward walked over to Fendson's tent with curiosity tapping in his heart like a couple of sexy, Irish, river dancers. The broad-shouldered soldier delivering the message had been quite frank about the whole thing. The deep-voiced 'she needs to see you' gimmick should have been downplayed in Edward's eyes.

When his feet finally brought him to the area, he contemplated the protocol of entering another person's tent. Those were words he never thought he'd think without innuendo attached.  What if she was completely naked, laying there on a sleeping bag? He had to fight the urge to just tear away the zipper. She was certainly attractive, but he had no doubts that she slept with a gun under her pillow. That had to be the cause of her kinked neck.

"Sarge?" he asked, figuring that even if the material was a bit thicker, it certainly wouldn't be soundproof.

"Come in," she said quietly, her tone reminding him of a girl he had a crush on in the seventh grade.

Edward unzipped the front portion of the tent, going into an empty entryway. He zipped through the next section, feeling very much like he was in one of those old Slide-Lock plastic bag commercials.

"Have you decided to promote me?" he asked jokingly, stepping inside.

Fendson sat on her sleeping bag with a scowl. The section of her tent meant to share with a couple others was filled with green bags and a few weapons. "Shoes, Mr. Drest. We're not in a barn."

Kicking off his shoes in the vestibule, Edward couldn't help but chuckle at how she could be just as charming in private as she was in training. He settled down in the tent far enough from Fendson's handgun.

"We're leaving tomorrow morning."

He couldn't hold in his smile. He also noted that this was information that really didn't need to be shared in private. "I must have passed my physical tests with flying colors. Which department has recruited me, the ex-marines? The FBI fill-ins?"

She sighed and stared at the corner of the tent. "I wish I could be so naive again."

"You sure know how to make a man feel special."

Turning to face him, she spoke plainly, "I could make a man feel a rainbow of emotions."

Edward's eyebrows raised in intrigue. "Such as?"

"I shouldn't tell you," she said, averting her eyes.

"You shouldn't, but you're going to. You're a woman; it's in your DNA. If my two real-life relationships have been good for anything, they helped teach me when to tune out."

Fendson stayed quiet and flicked through a few papers she had lying on top of her sleeping bag. It was a bit of a relief if he was completely honest. It didn't sound like pleasure would be one of the emotions she would describe.

The silence between them dragged on. He wondered why she had called him here in the first place. Was the leaving tomorrow statement not an invitation? It would be good to know sooner than later. "So was there something in particular you needed to tell me? Or was that leaving tomorrow comment the reason you called me here, Sarge?"

Fendson cringed. "If you're going to insist on calling me anything, at least make it Olivia."

"Olivia?" Edward asked, impressed that her name had finally left those plump lips of hers. She confirmed by shooting him a look of disinterest.

"What do people call you, besides Mr. Drest?"

"Well, no one outside the telemarketing world calls me Mr. Drest. People call me Ed or Edward. They're both fine."

"Ed," she paused and he could feel the discomfort she wore like thrift store undergarments. "Training is over, and we'll be moving onto a new facility."

"Is it top-secret?"

"It's classified." He wasn't aware that there was a difference.

"Don't tell me, I'm your top choice for marathon runner this year. Did Williams slip and break every bone in his body when I wasn't looking?"

"Are you ever serious?" she snapped. Her posture stiffened.        

Edward shrugged, hoping that her scowl would disappear soon. He felt like he was twelve and sitting in the principal's office again. "I like to look at things in a different light."

Her face melted like soft-serve ice cream, if it were bipolar. "We've certainly noticed that."

Edward was taken by surprise. He was under the impression that he was never truly alone at any given moment. I really don't need Big Brother, my sister is already on my case, he thought. Olivia dug through her backpack for a tablet that she flicked on. He watched her fingers move through different passwords and icons until she brought up a very familiar photograph.

"That's my apartment," Edward said, taken aback. The lilies on the end table shocked him the most. Those were a gift from his sister after he underwent surgery, six months ago. "Who are you people?"

"We're a concerned group of citizens with a strong sense of premonition and excellent survival skills."

"Pretty easy to survive if you know it's coming," he muttered.

Olivia's eyes burned through him, sending shivers down his spine. He was lucky he didn't wet himself with a look of loathing like that. "Our blind, ignorant society chose to neglect important events, painting over them with political scandals and celebrity gossip. They discredited anyone who wasn't in the pursuit of their fiscal self-serving agenda."

Edward crossed his arms in front of his chest. "You knew this was coming?"

"Our planet can only survive so much desecration before it acts to remove the causal agent."

"English, please?"

"Would you stand around and let someone kick you in the groin for years without retaliating?"

He smiled at her reference. He could tell she had stretched out of her comfort zone with that one. "But nature can't just knock humanity out cold."

"Didn't it though?"

He thought back to the earthquakes shaking away the very foundation of his home, sending him running to the street only to feel the cruel grasp of high-speed winds uprooting anything in their path. Pure luck had kept him alive. Reports of flooding in the weeks leading up to this made the news as well. She may have had a point.

"Most people died," Edward muttered. "How did you know I would survive?"

"We sent a retriever out to get you, but he didn't make it to you." Her voice wavered slightly at the end, a slight indication that she was human after all. He cringed at the humanity burning within him compelling him to comfort her. She would probably pull a mother nature and junk punch him so he fought the urge. A panda bear cub could probably still get a dirty look after attempting physical contact with her.

"As you know, we later found you in the desert just before you drank yourself dry," Olivia continued.

 "I'm still not sure why your group would want me? I work a computer repair shop, hardly a unique skill these days."

"This is why," she said, flipping through the photos on the tablet until a metallic structure appeared that brought a smile to his lips.

"Sometimes I borrowed obsolete parts from the shop to throw together stuff like that," he said.

"Stuff like that Ed," she said, meeting his eyes with a level of respect he hadn't yet seen her use on him, "is the difference between you starving in the desert and us offering you a chance to be instrumental to the development of a new society."

"Let me guess, Williams is an ideal candidate for breeding?"

"It's an honor to be here and you're still cracking jokes," she said with creases forming on her forehead.

"I'm not sure what you're expecting from me, Olivia. If you're looking for someone to rebuild a society, you clearly have the wrong idea."

"Come with us and we'll show you."

Edward smiled. "I fell for that already, Olivia. You're going to need a better bargaining chip this time."

"We've already developed a framework to keep power functioning."

"Yes, somehow that tablet of yours is still working, congratulations."

"You would have complete access to the framework and our resources to modify existing technology and develop your own." 

"Olivia, you can bribe me all you like, but the bottom line is I can't do what you're asking of me. It's complicated enough to repair these systems, and designing them from scratch is just something I'm not able to do."

Olivia's eyes met his slowly; the hazel color was consuming. "You're the closest we could find. Regardless of what you think you're capable of, we don't have other options."