Chase followed Bloom quietly before realizing he didn't know where they were going.
"Wait, where are we going?" Chase asked.
Bloom knew the question was coming. She also knew Chase's record for not talking since he had gotten to the compound was two minutes.
"We're going to visit Milo's room. He'll have some things that might help you manifest your Mode." Bloom looked back and smiled.
"Like what?" Chase got more curious.
"You'll see." Bloom said as they came up to Milo's room. Bloom knocked on the door that now had a piece of paper taped to the door that read "Only knock if it is URGENT."
"Enter." Milo's voice came from behind the door.
Bloom opened the door to reveal Milo scrolling through data sets on his laptop.
"What do you need?" Milo asked blankly, without even turning to greet his guests. The other compound residents were used to this.
"Do you still have those VHS tapes you found back when you were little?" Bloom used her hand as an estimate to how tall Milo was back then.
"For god's sake this isn't urgent at all." Milo rubbed his head like Bloom's simple request gave him a migraine. "Let's see." Milo sighed as he started rummaging through the piles of miscellaneous gizmos and gadgets stored under his desk.
Chase, gaining a new record of two minutes and thirty seconds without talking (without his knowledge of Akilah keeping a record) had thought of something curious.
"Why don't you just manifest your own gadgets?" Chase just felt like he helped Milo out, finding the key to his secret powers he had yet to discover.
"Thank me later!" Chase thought as he crossed his arms in confidence.
"It's not that simple you dimwit." Milo tapped his head two times while looking at Chase before going back to looking for the VHS tapes.
"Milo! Remember what I said!" Bloom gave a stern face as Milo sighed.
"It's not that simple, genius. Here, let me explain." Milo pulled the stack of VHS tapes out, which he had found just as he finished his statement.
"Let's say I wanted to make a VHS tape. With some practice it's possible. All I'd need to do is recreate the tape, the moving parts, and the casing and I would be perfect. But I'd need to know how the VHS tapes look inside and out so I could create one that works properly.
"But let's say I'd want to manifest my laptop." Milo grabbed his laptop.
"I'd have to know each wire, each circuit, each piece of plastic, and how they all connect to each other. I'd much rather just carry the laptop I already have." Milo shook his head as he continued.
"Modes that center around living things have it easy. They can leave the inside vague, since they are recreating the flow of Spirit that a specific plant or animal would have, not the cellular organelles. But technology and machinery can't rely on that, since, y'know, they don't have Spirit because they're not alive." Milo raised his eyebrow as he thought of something.
"What's your Mode?" Milo pointed at Chase.
"Uh, guns?" Chase didn't see the connection between his Mode and the subject at hand. He still hadn't connected why Bloom brought him to Milo.
"Ah, you have it hard like me." Milo shook his head and brushed his black hair back.
"What?" Chase was still quite confused.
"You'll have to do the same thing I just explained, idiot!" Milo smacked his forehead with his palm.
"Milo!" Bloom looked at him like a mother silently scolding her child from across a public area. Milo sighed again.
"You're going to have to manifest each and every part of the gun and manifest them in the correct places." Milo stated.
"Oh, that's easy. I know a gun inside and out. I've watched enough action movies for three lifetimes, and I've even shot a gun once-." Chase confidently pointed his thumb towards his chest as Milo cut him off.
"Do you, though?" Milo raised his eyebrows in suspicion of Chase's statement.
Chase began to think.
"Oh god. I really don't." Chase rubbed his forehead as he thought. Chase felt like even more of an idiot now. He hadn't even taken a chance to question his own knowledge of the thing his powers were centered around in the first place.
Chase remembered the action scenes from the movie Predator, his favorite movie of all time. He replayed Arnold's final showdown with the hunter a million times. As a kid, he had always assumed that if he had ever gotten in that exact situation, he would have been able to hit that alien multiple times over just based on how many scenes depicting gun shootouts he had played and replayed.
"Such a fucking idiot" Chase thought to himself.
"And that's why I think you've been struggling so much. Don't look down on yourself, you're just up against a very difficult task, but I'm sure you'll overcome it." Bloom smiled at Chase.
Her words gave Chase a bit of relief. He couldn't fully forgive himself for falling behind his friends, but at least some of the blame was taken off of him.
"Well, anyway. Here's the VHS tapes you wanted. Good luck, kid. Bloom, some of those might not be action movies. There's a lot of junk mixed into the stash. Now exit my room." Milo waved goodbye as Chase took the box of VHS tapes from him. Bloom and Chase walked out of Milo's room and surprisingly didn't turn back towards the gymnasium.
Chase turned towards the gymnasium at first but then doubled back once he noticed Bloom wasn't going that way as well.
"Where are we going?" Chase asked once again.
"You'll like this one, promise." Bloom liked for Chase to piece it together on his own. She thought this might give him a better understanding of the whys and hows behind the training he was about to go through.
The two of them showed up at the door of Chase's own bedroom.
"My room?!" Chase felt even more confused than before.
Bloom chuckled as she opened the door. Chase had taken the old television set that Milo had brought home from the tech store in town and installed it into his bedroom.
Until now, he had been watching the local channels, which mostly consisted of government propaganda and soap operas that were cleansed of any differing themes and opinions. After the first few hours of novelty, he only used it when Amora visited his room to have some background noise while they chatted.
"Is my training just watching movies?" Chase grew more confused by the second.
"Way back when Milo was a kid, he loved action movies just as much as you do. He would especially love it when the movies were realistic or explained their science." Bloom turned on the television and gestured for Chase to hand her the top VHS tape. Chase gave Bloom the top tape as he began to look through the stash's titles.
"Full Metal Jacket, okay that's a good one. Predator?! Amazing! And… What is 'Milo Saves The World'?" Chase grew confused at some of the titles in the stash.
She inserted the VHS tape as the screen began to show static.
"These are a couple of action movies I think you would like. But what I want you to do is find some scenes where they shoot that gun, or take it apart. See how each part of the gun clicks together. It would be even better if we had a gun here but the last one hundred years of government cleansing have made the firearm extinct if it isn't in the hands of a Correctional Officer." Bloom smiled as Chase began to wrap his head around what Bloom was asking of him.
"Okay. I got this." Chase nodded his head.
"Alright. I'll be checking in on you every so often. Remember to take it one piece at a time." Bloom smiled and placed a hand on Chase's shoulder.
A title screen came through the static on the television screen. It read A love letter to Alex. After the amateur title screen a teenage Bloom showed up on the screen and cleared her throat as she began to read off of a paper.
Chase blinked slowly, moving his face into a mischievous grin.
"This is an action movie?" Chase pointed at the screen as Bloomed turned in horror.
She rushed over to take the VHS out of the television.
"How did this get mixed up with Milo's tapes?" Bloom mumbled to herself as she stuck the VHS tape in her back pocket.
"I'm so bringing this up to Alex." Chase grinned in silence.
"This one… I meant to play this one. I'll be back in an hour or two to check on you." Bloom played the VHS tape and smiled as she walked out of the room, trying to smile past the obvious paleness of her face.
Bloom turned and reassured herself that he would catch up to the others.
"If you won't believe in yourself, then I will for you." Bloom thought to herself.
As she walked out, the television screen began to clear up as the title for RoboCop played. Chase knew this movie from front to back. This would be easy.
"Wait up, guys. Just a little longer and I'll be right beside you." Chase thought.