By the time the two got home, everything seemed to be out of place, somehow-Miles was found building his pidgeon planes in the living room, in the process of cutting the metal sheets he had collected into the parts for the thing, Melanie was-according to Alex Mars' ears-snoring lightly in her room upstairs, while Thomas had obviously left the house in his Chiron, since its parking space was empty. Alex actually felt relieved of his absence, for he was tired of getting his life meddled with a guy who did not understand the importance and potential of his solution-which, just an hour ago, had been proclaimed that it would work thanks to pure luck.
After letting Lyra take over his job of telling the others of how things had turned out, the dark mood of the house slipped into Alex Mars, he got on his bed and stared at the ceiling, remembering those days early on in his life when he had spent his long hours at night making up a tiny bucket list for himself of what to accomplish the next day. He decided to repeat the old habit once more, but then, found that the next few days, until the supplies would arrive, would have nothing for him to accomplish or do, so rather started to simply let his mind wander. He thought of how Ryan Marvick's Martian civilization worked and looked like, and how the people there were coping without their leader. He thought about Miles' pidgeon planes, how to help the guy succeed in making those planes do whatever he ordered. Then he thought about the day-in an overall sense.
Though Thomas' problem in the morning had nearly ruined it, the day had turned out to be rather good-they had food supplies coming, a Revolution with a capital R speeding towards them thanks to the protests that his townsfolk had started thanks to the Internet blog that had been written thanks to his parents, and thus, a new thing to look forward to every day. Yes, he'd be returning shortly back to his home, he'd be soon seeing his parents, and even Michael, the local Martyr, and all the while, this gift package had come with a huge bonus-he'd have a chance to end the dammed lives of the two generals who had no right to be called generals, who had no right to rule, who had no right to push the protestors in his city back into their homes.
Thus, to sum up, it had been one of his most brilliant days in the Rebels, and perhaps, in his entire life, along with the day he had finally proclaimed his identity as a Prodigy in front of Hale.

Days passed as they always did, do, and would in the future. Thomas kept away from serious, deep talks with Alex Mars, Miles built his pigeon planes each night, sometimes with Alex, sometimes alone, Melanie watched TV and just stuck her nose in Lyra room and stayed there for hours, talking with her usual talking vibe, and Lyra rapped out numbers for everything she saw, including Melanie, whom she let in whenever Melanie stuck her nose into her room.
And, for activities they did together, they Raided, Raided, and Raided. Though Miles and Melanie were tolerant enough of Thomas' tiny Chiron, Alex Mars clearly didn't feel so, so on the third day od their simple and very usual Raid, he walked alone off into the light of the rising sun at 6 a.m., hands tucked into his pockets. Thoughts rained through him, daring him to catch one and dwell on it, and sure he did-he thought about the protests going on in his city, in America, his parents, how he wanted to torture Hale and Fawkes once he encountered them, when the food supplies would come, and thus, when he'd be able to eat proper food in comparison to simple food pills, and, surprisingly, also thought of Lyra-who had decided to stick with the car for now, for she wasn't as athletic as the others and, obviously, as a Prod, knew better than Alex to utilize the remaining electricity of the Chiron and save her body's energy as much as possible. He remembered that brilliant day when he had met the Martian-Lyra had been an excellent person to talk to, that day... he wished that she had just given up riding the car, not caring about saving her energy just to talk with him, to show him her true personality, the vibrant and extrovert one, instead of the one covering that real identity up, which was the shy and introvert one.
For a moment, as he was reaching the edges of the city and to the land, only the Raiders had gone to, he tried to imagine her walking in front of him, her brown hair wavering in rhythm to her quick pace, streaming over her shoulders... though it was easy at first, soon, however, she slipped out of his mind, and scrunching his face, Alex Mars went back to solely walking, the rain of thoughts in his head all gone, except the command for his legs to walk, walk, walk.

Finally, he reached the house where Marvick had lived since he had been born, and moved to the other houses near it, hoping that interesting stuff dwelled inside, but, finding none, but old cars, socks, blown up parts of the houses, and other kinds of rubbish. So it had been luck that had led him to Marvick's house full of tech and everything...
So, after confirming that nothing special was in the houses, he set to looking for brand new cars(to be specific, the Evolution 3 Eleven 430 Lotus that Melanie had demanded...), and metal parts to fit in Miles' pidgeon planes. Just when he had found a car, which wasn't brand new, nor was the Evolution 3 Eleven 430 Lotus, but looked newer than the others and was a Korean made, sturdy Rexton G4-Jesus, Melanie isn't going to be too happy for having a 2020s Korean-brand car...-and a few metal sheets in some garage for the planes, he heard the Chiron's silent motors sliding over the sand on its wheels. Though he wasn't afraid of any of the other Raiders, he simply felt the need for privacy, and quickly got on the G4 without much thinking. And just when he heard Thomas and Miles slip off the car first and put their feet on the Earth, he inserted the cars' keys-which had been, miraculously, on the passenger's seat- into the ignition, and barely missing the edge of the automatic-sliding garage door, kicked the pedal and soon raced off outside.
He ignored the Chiron idling only a few meters away as he had expected, ignored Thomas and Miles gaping at him, and gave full attention to driving, gave full attention to the adrenaline pumping in his veins, which had been last felt when he had saved the three cars and their passengers and demolished Melanie's Lotus. How ironic... in her soon-to-be-Melanie's-new-car, he was feeling the sensation he had last felt in her soon-to-be-destroyed-Melanie's-car.
He loved the situation-the tires kicking up the sand all over as if he was recording an ad for the G4, the quick tires, the speed, the view of the grand, yellow sand, along with the Chiron and the grinning Miles-and now, Lyra had also gotten off, too. She-Jesus, Lyra, was smirking!-stood there, next to the car, eyes arched.
Encouraged by her smirk, the rarest of all on Earth, he raced away from them all, back home, and after a few miles, let the windows down and let the cool wind quickly flush the car of every dust particle it had had in its interior prior.
-And this time, he wasn't horrified. He was ecstatic.

After parking the G4 neatly right in front of the house so Melanie would be delighted, he got off with the steel panels he had collected. He then took out Mile's plane and cut the steel panel bit by bit into the shape of a huge wing of the plane with a knife Miles had gotten from some house months ago. As he did, these thoughts returned to the Revolution, how he would use the protestors as a reason to overturn the U.S. current government. Maybe, he could use these pigeons to send a secret message to the people that he was alive and was going to bring about a Revolution. Alright, the thought was insane and unrealistic, when the Revolution might be only a few weeks away and the planes were far from finished, but he felt no crime nor sin in dreaming such a thing. Anyway, Andrew had been like that all the time-dreaming, imagining, dwelling in the world of 'The Goner, Where No One Exists', which he had enjoyed so much. It felt like a good way to commemorate the guy.
No matter what his brain thought, his hands worked nimbly, finishing the wing and he fit the thing into the hole that Miles had drilled and finished one right wing.
-Even without resting, he went ahead for the other side.

He was still making the left wing when the Raiders came back. Thomas directly swallowed 5 pills in one gulp with no water, then went to sleep, putting Alex Mars once more in a state of relief.
"Jesus, it was cool, Alex," Miles said, then let his eyes grow into golf balls when he took in the view of the plane with its nearly finished wings.
"Jesus, it is cool, Alex-present tense, this time. I'm freakin' thankful," Even before he could reply back, Miles picked up a metal sheet and raced up the stairs, ready to make the wheels for the plane.
By the time Lyra came into the living room, Mars was finally attaching the left wing to the main body of the plane, too concentrating to notice her well.
However, as her butt hit the ground next to him, he had just finished the attachment a second earlier, and noticed her-and as he looked up, she gave him an unprecedented look-a look that wasn't calculating, but actually, the look of an ordinary person-, and, the sheer significance and unprecented-ness of the look froze him completely.
"Jesus," He said, hands letting go of the plane. "Huh?" Lyra asked back.
"You didn't do it this time," he said, still astonished.
"Do what?" She asked, completely clueless.
"Shit, you didn't calculate me this time, Lyra. You usually look at me as if I am some math problem you gotta solve in 30 seconds, and you'd love to solve it in 30 seconds-but just now, you looked at me as if... I was a proper human being-If you know what I mean," It took her a few seconds to get the hang of his words. Then, a few more minutes for her to get a grip on herself.
"Jesucristo, you're right!" Her eyes were bigger than Miles' had been a few minutes ago. "But the thing is, ain't it a bad thing?" She added, face, in a single second, gloomy. Alex Mars pushed away the plane-for finally, the time to talk with her come that day, and he didn't want to let it slip through his bare fingers. "The thing is, Lyra Cannes-though it is useful sometimes, I think its drawbacks were greater than its advantages. And will, in the future, if you just let it be. You'll life will be dominated completely by numbers-people's weight, their value and how much they have the prospect to contribute to their world... so once you make a wrong estimate and you have to pay the cost for it, I'm sure you're gonna... kill yourself or something. No one would want that," This time, as he said those words, he felt somehow emotional and extremely sincere to his words.
But the thing was, Lyra didn't seem too convinced.
"But then, if I lost-I mean, goit rid of that habit somehow-I wouldn't be reckoned as a Prodigy, right? But I don't want that-if I'm not one of the Rebels, I definitely have nowhere else to belong to, Al," She wasn't sobbing, for she wasn't weak mentally, but she was muttering, eyes at the floor beneath her. Alex Mars somehow had to comfort her-not because he didn't want her to be a broken-down, wimpy girl, but only because it was so unusual to see her break down while she was in her extrovert self. "Christ, Lyra. I'm sure you have some ability hidden inside you... in addition, you show everything all prods have-fast speed, both mentally and physically. You're always gonna be included somewhere, and it is probably gonna be the Rebels. I swear," He watched as her gaze-this time, a bit calculative and gloomy-rose from the floor, to his feet, to his face.
"Time will tell," Alex Mars quoted her.
"Time will tell. It has to," Lyra Cannes added.

They both got on the couch, silent. The plane had been long abandoned in front of the TV, and Alex listened to the sounds of the night inside the house-Thomas' snore, Miles' sound of cutting the thin steel plates, Melanie looking herself in the mirror or sleeping with her light snore... he was thankful to not hear Lyra hallucinate like that night when he had found out her truth, though he knew that she needed sleep a lot. Thoughts were ironic a lot in his head, thus-he wanted her to just stay until they were both at the edges of sleep, and at the same time, wanted to dismiss both of him and her to each of their rooms.
"Alex Mars, do you know what love is?" She suddenly asked, prompting him to push his first wish-the one for her to stay-further than the second one.
Then, he realized that he had been thrown a question, and wondered what she meant.
The best way to deal with an unexpected and uncertain question was to say everything he could, so he did...
"According to the first meaning of love in the old Meriam Webster dictionary, it means "a feeling of strong or constant affection for a person". But personally, I think it can never be explained, just some sensation that all humans instinctively feel, something that dismisses them particularly from the race of animals-yeah, I think that animals don't have the brain section for love but for the instinct of simple reproducti-" He only stopped since Lyra was shooting him an alarmed look, then watched as she laughed in her way of laughing-soft but also vibrant in her own way.
"Um, sorry," He said by the time she took deep breathes and recovered. "Alright. I also know the definition of love already, Al. And, I think I got what you consider as love now," "What a relief," Mars commented, and Lyra smirked. It simply amazed Alex just like she had earlier on that day with her smirk at the desert as he performed his show with the G4.
By distracting himself by looking at her smile proudly, he simply wasn't prepared for her next 'assault'.
"Then, Alex, what do you love?" Lyra asked.
Jesus, what exactly does she want? Alex Mars frowned, but a question was a question. And what every questioners wanted were... answers.
He had wondered a lot about the subject, as you might know. However, he had never formed some definition, nor exactly what he loved in real life, he realized now.
He didn't want to come up with no answers, however, so grit his teeth and let his brain search every one of his memory to figure out what he had actually taken great attention in and had favored at least once in those memories.
"It changes sometimes. For people, I love this guy whom I met when I was young and helped me train into a  true Prod secretly. I also loved Andrew, then my parents. But right now, though I still love'em, my brain's trend is somehow going towards... illogic. Maybe it's because Andrew and my parents are illogical. Yes-I like and is interested in illogic," He finally came up with this. The problem was, however, though he really understood the first part of his own words, his brain had crawled into a state of confusion as he said the gizmo on illogic, or whatever. Alright, how had I come up with this? he wondered.
"Woah," As If understanding for real, Lyra murmured.
"Alright. I actually don't know if what I just said just came out of my true heart. Just felt like saying it, anyway. What of you?" Alex looked up and found her looking down once more.
"Sarah," She said curtly.
"Right, right," Of course, what had he expected?
An awkward silence lept between them, each thinking of their individual people.
Lyra thought of Sarah, Alex, then the thing that Alex had said about Lewis-that he shouldn't be trusted.
Alex was thinking of what Lyra had meant by her question on love, his Revolution, et cetera, et cetera.
"You should sleep," Lyra finally cut into his head, and he looked up, face blank. "What of you?"
She shook her head. "I have this feeling that if I go to bed now, I would anyway come up sick and have to repeat the episode of a few nights ago," "Gee. Maybe  I should stay and-"
"I believe we each have things to think about for now," Lyra cut in. Alright, she was a bit strange today-asking strange questions and commanding stuff to me... Alex thought.
Wordlessly, he got up from the couch and walked up the stairs, thinking that Lyra Cannes was one of the most illogical girls in the world.