Paper Thin ((BH6 fanfic))

Chapter 7: Design Faliures

Tadashi's POV

After quite a bit of searching throughout the entire bunker, I found her in a large room. It had a large piece of destroyed machinery, a smaller sealed bunker, and a half-pulled-apart piece of machinery. Morgan was in the smaller bunker watching videos.

Videos? No, not videos....footage....from security cameras.

I opened the door to the bunk.
"Morgan?"
She flinched slightly but remained in her sitting position, staring at the soundless screens with tears burning down her cheeks.
"Hey, what's going on?" I asked her still figure.
"She's gone."
"Who?"
"The reason."
"Reason for what?"
"The reason he stole your brother's microbots."
"What?"
"Look."

She pushed a button and the tapes rewinded. I watched the silent screens as Callaghan spoke to his daughter for the last time, she flew into the portal, it was destroyed, she didn't come out, and he blamed Krei.

"The article...."
"It was an accident. Just not the kind you'd expect to see. She was a test pilot. Just not for normal planes. For the portal."
"Portal?"
"Teleportation."
"That tech--"
"Doesn't exist. Well, it did a while back. In the article it said she died from a faulty plane design. That was just a cover. She died from a portal failure."
"So you think that that's why the professor took the microbots?"
"I know, I don't think. Look at this clip."

She showed me where Callaghan was trying to attack Krei, only to be held back by some other men.

"..."
"And he didn't take them. He purposely stole them."

"She's right, you know."

The voice startled both of us. It wasn't Callaghan's voice. It was female, light and choppy. I couldn't forget that voice.

"Luci."
"Dash."

She stood there in the doorframe, her hands clasped together, a tired smile on her face. She was only nineteen, but she had been living a mother's life, doing a mother's job since she was twelve. Her little brother depended on her. And now she was 'dead'.
She was a bit shorter than me, but not by much. Morgan was much shorter than both of us. Her long, black hair was pulled back into the usual braid. Her brown eyes and dark skin truly showed she had a Hispanic side to her. She wore her usual: a simple, grey, long-sleeved shirt with its sleeves rolled up, capris that stopped at her knobby knees, and grey Bobs flats. She looked almost the same as the day I met her. Except, now she had small stress wrinkles around her eyes. She had been hard at work.

"It's been a long while since we last studied together."
"Yea. The last time we studied together was when you helped me program Baymax."
"My, my. Has it been that long?" She chuckled. Morgan stood up and turned to see the young librarian.

"Luz?"
"Morgan!!"
"Luz!!!! Y-you survived!!"
"All thanks to Callaghan."
"What?"
"Abigail and I were best friends. When she died, I became like a daughter to him. I was the closest thing he had to family. And his last memories of Abigail."
"So when he found you in the fire--"
"Actually, I found him. He saved me."
"And...was the article--"
"Correct? Yes. I did run in to save you. I thought that Callaghan was going to die. I wanted him to die. He'd suffered too much."
"Really?"
"His wife, his daughter. I didn't want him to live through all of this pain."

"So you felt sorry for him," I spoke quietly. Her smile faded.
"Yes. And when I found him in the fire, he saved me and asked me to help him."
"How?"
"I can't tell you that."
"Why not?"
"I...I just can't."
"Luci, you can tell me anything."
"Dash, not this time."
I chuckled,"Dash. I remember when you gave me that nickname. Most people called me Tadashi or Dashi, but you shortened it to 'Dash'."

She giggled and walked over to me, taking my hand in hers.
"Yes. You won the races though."
"Yea."

She gave me a quick kiss on the cheek.
"Dash, don't forget," she said to me. Then she turned to Morgan. "Morgan...I'm sorry for not visiting you earlier...."

"It's ok, Luz. You're alive and that's all that matters."

She smiled and left.

"What was that?"
"What was what?"
"She kissed you!"
"Huh? Oh....yea, well it's a long story."
"A story I wanna hear."
"Fine."