Dr. Kang worked on Shin for about forty minutes and by the end of it her colour was slightly better and she was conscious enough to be embarrassed about the whole situation which Michael took as a good sign.
She was younger than he'd initially thought, maybe early in her early twenties, with a beautiful face that looked very stressed due to the whole situation. She looked around the apartment and then at Michael with tired grateful eyes.
"Thank you," she said. "For coming down."
"Don't mention it."
"You didn't have to."
"No," Michael agreed and didn't say anything else about it.
Shin looked at Sera then at Maya hovering near the window and Dr. Kang washing her hands in the kitchen with the water system running clean and steady. Then back at Michael.
"What's the plan?" she asked quietly.
It was the same question Sera had asked the first day she came, also the same question Maya had practically been asking with her eyes since the hallway downstairs.
And it was the same question Dr. Kang had communicated entirely through the angle of her eyebrows when she had first looked around the apartment.
It was a universal question apparently.
Michael pulled up the Blueprint Interface. He was still not at tier 2 but he wasn't too far away from it, he would only need two more upgrades.
"Build," he said.
Shin looked at him for a moment then nodded like that was a complete enough answer which honestly it was.
[Bond Event — First Meeting: Shin. +1 Bond Point. Current BP: 1 — Shin.]
---
By evening the apartment had rearranged itself around five people to better suite their current situation. Shin had the couch, Dr. Kang's orders. Dr. Kang had claimed the second bedroom after assessing the available resources and acted before anyone else finished thinking about it.
Maya had taken the corner of the living room near the viewport, sitting cross legged with her back to the wall and her table leg still across her knees like she hadn't fully decided the world was safe enough to put it down yet.
Sera had gone back to her bedroom without discussion.
Michael was on the floor again. He genuinely didn't mind. The floor was his original territory.
He sat with his back against the kitchen cabinet and ran through the upgrade list in his head.
The workbench materials were already in storage if he checked properly. The perimeter alert system needed two more components from the shop. After that Tier 2 opened up and Tier 2 meant the barracks blueprint which meant he could create more sleeping spaces for everyone instead of couch claims and floor arrangements.
He was still planning when Maya appeared from the living room and sat down across from him without asking, pulling her knees up and looking at him with those wide dark eyes that had a directness to them he was learning was just her natural setting.
"So," she said quietly so as not to wake Shin. "Long story."
Michael looked at her.
"Not tonight," he said.
She held his gaze for a second then tilted her head slightly. "You're not just scavenging."
"No."
"And you're not going to tell me how."
"Not tonight," he said again.
She considered that. Then she reached into the front pocket of her hoodie and pulled out a slightly battered protein bar and held it out to him. He looked at it with a raise brow.
'Is she really giving me back my own food?' Michael thought to himself.
She had gotten it from the storage unit an hour ago, he had seen Dr. Kang show her where the food was.
"You didn't eat dinner," she said simply.
He took it. "Thanks."
She nodded and rested her chin on her knees and looked at the reinforced door for a moment. Outside the city full of its usual nighttime sounds, distant and grim and continuous.
"It feels safe here," she said quietly, not really to him, just out loud.
"It is," he said. "For now."
She looked at him. "For now I guess...."
"Getting better," he said.
She seemed to think about that then nodded like she decided to believe him and got up and went back to her corner and sat back down with her table leg across her knees.
[Bond Event: Small Kindness — Maya. +1 Bond Point. Current BP: 2 — Maya.]
Michael ate the protein bar in the dark and looked at the notification for a moment then pulled up the Blueprint Interface and kept planning.