Apocalyptic Rebirth: With a repairman system space, she rises again.-Chapter 661: Master of the lab.

Sunshine didn’t wait for a lead-in. She leaned across the table, her eyes like flint. "I’m going to make this very simple for you, Amber. I know you aren’t in Westbrook because you ’miss’ your children. You’ve never missed anyone but yourself."

Amber’s mouth opened, a protest forming, but Sunshine held up a sharp finger.

"Save it. Your excuses don’t work on me. I know exactly what you’re after. You want Hades back, or you want a piece of my fortress. Probably both. You married Harrington for the gold in his pockets, and when the world ended and that wealth turned into dust, you realized you made a bad investment."

Amber’s face began to turn a mottled, angry red, but she stayed silent.

"I don’t even know if you love your youngest kids," Sunshine continued, her voice cold and precise. "You seem too comfortable using them as shields and keys to open doors you aren’t invited into. You don’t seem to care that it makes them uncomfortable. I bet you’d dump those Harrington children in a second if Hades told you he wanted you back. You’ve never been the motherly type; you’re a user." 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

Sunshine leaned in even further, her shadow falling over Amber. "If my boys ever decide they want their birth mother in their lives, they know where to find you. But until that day, stay away from our family. Stop using children as a means to an end. If you keep pushing this ’familiarity,’ I will do something drastic. I am far more dangerous than your little mind can imagine, or do you want me to take you somewhere worse than the forest?"

The silence that followed was heavy. Amber looked like she had been hit with a physical force. The mask of the ’doting mother’ had been stripped away, leaving her looking small and exposed.

"This fortress expands every few months. If you keep this up, I will keep moving you until you are in the furthest corner away from my babies." Sunshine threatened. "If you do this next time, Ariel will not be the one to slap you, because I will do it for him."

Tears began to streak down Amber’s cheeks_ real or fake, Sunshine didn’t care to guess.

She stood up without another word and walked toward the back of the restaurant where the restrooms were to find her husband and sons. She found them outside, by the car. The mood had shifted.

"Change of plans," Sunshine announced, catching Hades’s questioning look with a firm nod. "We’re going to Jon’s Hotel. I hear the buffet is open to us tonight, and the dessert spread is twice the size of this place."

"Free cake?" Castiel asked, his eyes widening.

"The finest cake in Westbrook," Sunshine promised. "Jon came with five chefs that happen to be five-star chefs and one is a pastry wizard." She blew snowflakes in the air.

Castiel was excited. "Can I have coffee?"

"No." They all answered and laughed.

White put Castiel on his shoulders, and they walked to the hotel on foot. Dinner was as amazing as promised. Hades was the happiest because they didn’t pay and Jon was not too pleased about that.

They spent the rest of the evening touring the town, the boys laughing as they explored the children’s shops and stalls. By the time they boarded the aircraft to head home, the encounter with Amber was a distant, faded memory. Not even she could ruin the Quinn family night.

*****

The morning sun over Fortress Four was usually a signal for the start of tactical drills and logistical headaches, but for Sunshine, it started with a walk toward the one place that she liked to visit often: the weapons Laboratory.

Inside, the hum of high-tech machinery was punctuated by the scratching of a stylus on a digital tablet.

Professor Chloe was hunched over a workbench, her eyes wide as she listened to Ala. The young girl was gesturing animatedly toward a dismantled dragonoid pistol, her voice light but authoritative.

"If you reroute the energy through the secondary cooling vent, the recoil doesn’t just stabilize_ it feeds back into the battery," Ala was saying.

"That is brilliant," Chloe whispered, scribbling notes like a student during a final exam.

Sunshine leaned against the door frame and cleared her throat, a small smirk on her face. Both heads snapped up.

"Aunt Suni!" Ala cried out, her face lighting up with a genuine, toothy grin. She looked more at home in a lab coat than most of the senior staff.

"I hope she isn’t being too hard on you, Professor," Sunshine joked, pushing off the wall and walking toward them. "I know how she gets when she starts talking seriously."

Professor Chloe shook her head with a weary but respectful laugh. "Hard on me? I feel like I’ve learned more in the last days than I did in seven years of university."

Ala giggled, spinning a screwdriver between her fingers. "Professor Chloe is the only one here I can actually work with, Aunt Suni. The rest of the staff... well, their intellect is a bit slow. It’s like trying to explain quantum physics to a toaster."

"Hey now, be nice to the toasters, I would be lost without them." Sunshine teased.

Chloe greeted Sunshine properly and asked what brought the leader of the base down to the lab so early. "I’m actually here to see Ala," Sunshine replied.

Ala immediately took off her oversized lab glasses and pulled off her gloves. "Come on, let’s go to my office."

It was amusing that the child had an office! An office that had undergone a dramatic transformation. It was now strictly divided into two halves. Professor Chloe’s side was a sterile, organized collection of grey folders and a metal desk.

The other half_ Ala’s half_ looked like a rainbow had exploded in a tech shop. There were glowing jars, floating bits of metal, and cushions in every color imaginable.

"The Professor was kind enough to let me share her space," Ala said, hopping onto a plush purple chair. She looked at Sunshine with curiosity. "What is it, Aunt Suni? You have that weird face on."