ZOEY FELT her heart clench when she saw Luca and that other technician guy approaching; like it was a premonition of what was to come.

She knew Tina had been at the camp — and had vanished into thin air the very next day. It made her worried, how easily Ichabod could make people disappear, but she kept her head down and handed the antibiotics to those who had been bitten by bugs and bandages to those who had shredded their skin on cutting fern leaves. Zoey was a doctor, after all, but it didn't make her feel proud to be treating them.

Them being the people who would kill Amelia without a second thought.

The question was, was Luca one of them?

Zoey knew she certainly wasn't. Even thinking about what was going to happen under Ichabod's control caused mind-numbing anger to flow through her veins. She'd catch herself shaking, gripping onto a tray filled with epi-pens and boosters, her jaws clenched and eyes narrowed. So many people would die if Ichabod's plan was carried out ... And she would fail in her mission.

Well. She was failing already. Any sign of trouble, and she'd take it down. That's what her instructions had been; and look where that had gotten her.

Fearing the people she would've trusted in a heartbeat in her old world, when she still had Amelia and still felt joy in being able to help people.

As Luca approached, she moved outside of her tent and leant against the bracing, feeling the fabric flex like a muscle beneath her. The last time she and Luca had talked had almost been a week before, when he had convinced her to work with Ichabod. A week wasn't a very long tine, but was it long enough for people to shift allegiances?

And was it long enough for Amelia to forget about Zoey's feelings about her?

"Doctor Royson," Luca said, his voice sounding strained. He and his companion were sweating heavily, looking on the verge of an anxiety attack or dehydration or both. Luca pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "We need your help."

Zoey raised her eyebrows, but stepped back into the dimness of the tent. Luca and his friend followed, their footsteps making the bottom of the tent crackle. Zoey had been lucky enough — Doctor's privileges, she reckoned drily — to get a more spacious one than most. Ichabod's may have had a canopy, but there were enough nooks and crannies in her own to evenly distribute medicines that had arrived in the first container.

The first one.

Because the only thing that had come from the second, secret one (only proving her suspicion that someone high up, maybe even higher than Ichabod's father, was in on his plan for mass destruction), she guessed, had been tools. Tools for construction, and they buzzed day and night as the EEG hovered overhead, co-ordinating marines when Ichabod wasn't there to do it himself.

Though Zoey was anything but a builder, passing by the structure had given her moments of (surprisingly) appraisal. It had only been two days since the container had been dragged into camp, and yet it was beginning to resemble something more intricate than a giant metal box. Bracing points were placed on the four corners, and flaps and edges were cut into the metal like a prodigy first grader slicing up a cardboard box with a scissor for a school project.

It was almost taking on a hexagonal form, unless it was octagonal. 'Oct' is eight. Hexagonal, then. Folding it on itself, it loomed above the camp like the Loch Ness monster rearing up to swallow them.

The first thing Zoey did once they were all reasonably settled and shuffling underneath the stifling tarp was take hold of her own rationed water bottle and hand it to the both of them. "Keep yourselves hydrated," Zoey murmured. She breathed in a deep breath and took the plunge. "Amelia and Tina are too important for you to drop dead of dehydration now."

Luca, who had been drinking from the bottle gratefully, sputtered. Water ran down his chin as he handed it to his fellow technician, wiping his mouth before looking to her again. He nodded slightly. Zoey felt a smile grow on her face — for once, one of her assumptions was right.

Luca was on her side. Amelia's side.

"What do you need?" Zoey asked, before Luca could speak again. His friend handed her her bottle back, and she closed the lid firmly. Their rations were running low, she knew, and everything had to be rationed. Zoey looked a little mournfully to the water split across the floor.

"Resuscitators," Luca explained, "specifically silicone ones."

Zoey felt a twinge or curiosity, but she sensed he was going to elaborate further. Without a word she scratched through the unopened crates and safe-like containers she hadn't yet unpacked, feeling around for the familiar oily-like texture of the silicone. "How many?"

"Um," he paused. "Five? Maybe more."

Five? Zoey chewed on the inside of her cheek. She didn't know whether she'd be able to find that many, but she continued to scrounge about, finally hitting the jackpot on her second box.

She handed the two resuscitators to the guys, privately hoping as they passed from hand to hand that she wouldn't regret giving them up — that someone wouldn't need one when Zoey had none to give.

"So tell me," Zoey said, as it felt long overdue, "what do you need those for?" She put her hands on her hips and let her eyes travel from Luca to his friend and back. It was obvious enough that they were getting up to no good in Ichabod's eyes, if he was to find out, but she didn't know what to feel.

EUR had assured her that her training was merely a precaution, in the case of something go wrong. Someone going rogue. But suddenly it was no longer a precaution, it was a real event, and Zoey had people she could not afford to lose.

(Like Amelia. But EUR — and she, before ERAA; before everything — hadn't ever thought feelings would get in the way. But they had. And they did.)

To have people fighting alongside her was good, she supposed ... That meant Luca and the rebels weren't stupid enough to be bowled over, though her ears heated a little with guilt at ever thinking Amelia was stupid. But would Zoey be held accountable for their deaths in the failure of her own secret mission? (Would she be able to forgive herself if something happened to ...?)

"Terrestrial satellite," Luca's fellow technician answered. His hands ran up and down the silicone bag nervously, and he didn't meet her eye.

Maybe if he knew of her own inner turmoiled thoughts, he would trust her more. Zoey had to bite back her smile in the irony of it.

"To disable the volt-guns," Luca added. He explained the workings of the fuse card within Ichabod's cronies' weapons, and Zoey listened in stirring shock and awe. Of course! Zoey realized furiously. Lale and Amelia need an even playing field — they can't afford to go down without even starting to fight yet!

Before she could stop herself, Zoey flung her arms around Luca and squeezed him tight. "That's a brilliant idea!" She exclaimed, pulling away as he straightedged his knocked-askew glasses. Before the unnamed technician could dart away, she caught hold of him in a hug too.

"Keep doing what you're doing," Zoey encouraged, their attention held on her. "I'll do whatever I can to help." Her words were genuine, and both men seemed to relax. Her unexpected show of affection over with (which and surprised her and the technicians), Zoey hoped they would know that they could count on her.

For more reasons than they thought, anyway.

━━━━

an example of a silicone resuscitator