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Vernon is regretting directing his boss to buy this hunk of junk ostensibly known as a vehicle. Not very much, but a little. Mostly because she then made him drive it, and this is a finicky and temperamental beast that keeps listing to the left, but in amounts that change a bit on every single bump. They are driving through what is colloquially called 'the wasteland,' which is a desert about half as hospitable and twice as rocky as it sounds. He is having to adjust often. It's annoying. Not very, and honestly, having a functioning vehicle that is not potentially going to explode is a bit of a novelty for him, but enough that he will think fondly of that other vehicle boss-lady had been eyeing before he steered her this way. That sure would have been nice to drive. It would have been painting a gigantic target on their backs, but still. He can dream.
Yesssssssss she's right she's right she loves being right, fuck you plant engineer peers back in her home city of December she knew she could do it ahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!
Which is to say, she hovers by her precious. She needs to get all of what's in the console organized so that others can sift through the delicious data more efficiently, and then her proofs and equations and analyses, and then it will need to go onto a data stick for eventual transfer to the main database and then she will print several hard copies on paper, just in case, one of which will stay here in Jeneora and the others disseminated by way of paying people to be her minions and she is absolutely the most smug.
With Yvette being the one who's doing all of this... not exactly heavy lifting, but kind of heavy lifting, there's less and less for him to do around the plants themselves. He still hangs out, especially because he can be a faster source of feedback about the results of what Yvette's trying than waiting for the diagnostics to be ready, but he also spends some time doing other things like talking to the Jeneorans about how they're progressing and getting Yvette food because if he doesn't she will starve herself.
It’s during one of these stints out of the factory that he gets ambushed. Well, just barely in the factory, at the bottom of the absurdly tall spiral stairs.
“Hey there," says Vernon, casually.
He laughs. "We sell it pretty well, don't we?"
Vernon is getting at something, Zash just knows it.
"I think you should keep it up. Long term. Instead of disappearing into the sunset after the job is done like I expect you're planning to."
"I don't think I am. I got it, tragic backstory, running from your demons, trouble follows you, above my paygrade, yada yada. Gigantic target in a red coat. I just think she's one too."
"I think you're underestimating—" Sigh. "Everything the Julai Police said. The stuff that got me the $$6,000,000 bounty on my head. Destruction of property, mass loss of lives, loss of plants. All of that is true. They're not after me because the mad scientists want me and they're in their pocket, they're after me because they actually think I did all of that. Because it all did in fact happen, and I was there when it happened, and it was my fault."
"Yeah? Did you go around being a crazy terrorist or whatever, shooting up towns and stealing plants and slaughtering your way through this dustball planet of ours? Or were you just there when it happened, and got involved, and things didn't go the way you'd have preferred."
"I was there when those things happened because the things were following me. If I hadn't been there they wouldn't have happened, it doesn't matter if I wasn't the one who personally killed anyone, they're still dead and it's my fault."
"Ahuh. And yet I still think her odds are better with you than without you. Because it's only a matter of time before someone with a plant goes, 'Hey, why don't we just keep her,' or someone else goes, 'oh, a plant and an engineer to keep it running, that sounds like a payday to me,' and I think when that happens there's not much any of us can do about it. 'Cept you."
"Her life expectancy is a lot higher than a year and people definitely try to kill me more often than—"
... Well, he's not stupid, so he'll do his best. But he can do some looking around while not moving.
There's... something attached to his back. And Vernon can probably guess that it looks just like the one on Zash's back: a strange device with a glowing blue crystal head attached to a long metal neck that ends in four thin segmented legs that are individually attached to his back.
"What the fuck is this."
Please no please don't be Nai he thought he had more time they can fix this plant please give him more time—
"Lost tech of some kind. Looks like, uh." He eyes Zash's little strange device, and its crystal head. "... I couldn't tell you what all of the moving parts are, but the little crystal bits remind me of a type of bomb I've seen before."
"Kinda hoping I'm wrong but. Yeah. A bomb. 'cept this one has legs and has gone and attached itself to us."
"Fuck. Go check on Yvette, I need to go warn the others."
He doesn't wait for confirmation and just dashes off.
"Careful with it, it's finicky about temperature changes and getting jostled too much!! Going red is bad!"
But yeah he'll go check on their resident engineer while Zash goes dashing off to maybe save the town.
Their resident engineer does not seem to have a bomb attached to her. She's been left alone and in peace.