She had been stuck here on Avengaea with nowhere to go for nearly a week. Having no Andy and no good-quality (at least in comparison to Rome's training base) coffee had made her particularly irritable. Reaching out with her mind in that way that Mullen had taught them, she tried to reach the boy, Anderson, where ever he was. She had managed to do it once before, but he hadn't talked to her for long.
Hey, fuckwad, she poked at him.
Not now.
Adara blinked at the harsh rebuff and sat straighter in her chair. That bastard... he had cut her off! When she tried poking at him again she got nothing. What the hell? Goddammit. Like there's anything else to do around here.... She scowled at a soldier who passed near her end of the table, bent nearly double under the load of his bulky pack. Pig: his mouth was stuffed with instant-pancakes, a sausage hanging like a cigar out the side of his mouth. Ugh. He was probably going out on some hike with one of the scholarly-types... she couldn't blame him for stuffing his face with 'real' food if he was going to be out for a while. It was still sick. "Hey Keren," she jabbed her frizz-haired, Irish peer (and friend) in the shoulder with her unoccupied spork, "Let's sign up for one of those escort missions. Get some exercise or somethin', you know?" Escorting scientists out into the Avengaean wilderness: a chance to experience some truly untamed land--at the expense of having to tote around pack-loads of junk, and quite possibly beat back hordes of unknown monsters. Not that the second part would be all bad.
"Huh?" Keren answered intelligently, looking up from her somewhat disconsolate contemplation of her lunch, which she'd hardly eaten any of. She blinked at Adara a moment, until her request had sunk in, and her bored dejection faded almost in an instant. She perked with interest at the prospect of getting out of the depressing and thuroughly dry fort.
"Yeh think we caed? I mean, how long are we saepposed tae have until we hear what we're saepposed tae do next?" Meaning the bonding project, of course, but since they'd had so little word of how their absent fellow and the twerp were doing, it felt like it would *never* happen.
"Do yeh think theyre might be a group gaeing tae thae ocean?"
ÒWhy the hell would you want to go to the ocean?Ó Adara asked, her words harsh but her tone joking. She ignored Keren as the girl made a poor attempt to repress a snort. ÒProbably not, anyways. You wanted to go for a swim or something?Ó She pushed her chair away and stood, grabbing at her tray. The Irish girl hogging their only bathroom for hours on end, and disappearing for long periods of time back in Rome, wasn't far from her mind.
"Yae," Keren answered, "I'd leik a nice swim aboot now. Tis damn hot out here."
Adara shrugged. ÒWe can go check the assignments office, I guess. TheyÕre always looking for last-minute tagalongs. CÕmon.Ó
Keren followed her lead and stood, popping one of those little round pieces of popcorn-something into her mouth before striding briskly over to the nearest trash can and dumping the tray's contents. As they fell into step on their way to the assignments office, the red-head sighed gustily. "If they daenna have anyone going to the ocean... maeybe they'll at least have someone gaein to a laeke..."
"You know what? Why don't you take a look at the boards, and maybe do a little convincing," Adara grinned evilly and idly tapped one fist into an open palm, "And I'll go get us some supplies from Ammu-shack." They both knew how the pervert in charge of the Fort's weapons liked to chat the busty Grecian up, and while Adara was of a mind to punch his jaw loose, he always managed to give her twice what she signed for. It was a fair trade, in a way. "Sound good?"
Keren gave Adara an amused look. "If you think yeh can manaege tae not hurt him," she agreed.
Adara rolled her eyes. "Well, it'll be hard, but I've done it before..." She glared at her friend as she smothered a cackle. "You know what I meant!"
Getting back to the subject at hand, Keren asked, "dae you have a paerticular place ye'd like me tae look for, or is anything good?"
At this Adara shrugged. "Hell if I care. You pick. Maybe you'll find your ocean adventure or something." As they neared the ammo shed (it really was more of a shack with a large warehouse tacked on to the back then anything else), Adara waved to her friend, and they parted ways.