Geneva walked briskly down the hall that’d lead to the North Hangar, her boots thudding across the white tiles. She didn’t know who to tell about the files she’d found on her last mission, and Warden would want a report the second he saw her.
Her first thought was Jayce, but she immediately dismissed it. This was the first time she really thought about the fact that she couldn’t trust him with this information. She couldn’t trust him with a lot of things. She’d have to examine that later. Right now she just needed to double check that she’d deleted all the data from her consul, in case one of the officers did a sweep.
Speaking of the devil, Warden was rounding the corner right now. Geneva ducked into the first door that opened up in the concrete wall, and carefully eased it shut so it wouldn’t make a sound.
It wasn’t until she’d completed this feat that she heard water running and a man’s voice say, “Uhh … ”
She spun around. It was the men’s locker room. There were stalls and urinals to her right and the sinks just to her left, and lockers disappearing around the corner straight ahead. The room was mercifully empty, all except for Clark, who stood with his hands under running water, staring at her.
Geneva winced internally, and probably externally too. Of all the people she could run into, her boyfriend’s brother was not her top choice.
“You didn’t see me,” she said and disappeared into one of the stalls, locking it shut, and crouching her feet up on the toilet. There was a good chance Warden was also headed in this direction.
A moment later, the door opened. “Clark, good work you’re doing out there,” Officer Warden said.
“Thank you, sir.”
Geneva heard the zip of a uniform, or rather the unzip, and clogged her ears while Warden helped himself to the urinal.
When she heard water running again, she opened her ears. A moment later she heard Clark call her. “You can come out now.”
Geneva felt slightly touched that he’d waited as her security guard to let her know when the coast was clear. But she’d also prefer not to see him.
He leaned against the counter, resting the heels of his palms behind him. It did nice things to his shoulders. He was already taller than Jayce, but his black jumpsuit made him look even taller and more imposing in this limited space. His hair wasn’t as groomed as Jayce’s—she was pretty sure he got a trim every two weeks—but it still shone blue-black in the florescent lighting over his head.
“Care to explain that?” Clark asked.
“Nope, not really.”
“I mean, I realize Warden can be a pill, but I’ve never seen you duck and cover like that.”
“It’s just … something I found,” Geneva said, surprised at how easily this was starting to come out of her. She and Clark had been close during junior cadets. Neither one had had a lot of friends in those days, but then Geneva had gone through puberty and Clark had risen to the top of his class.
They hadn’t come much into contact since then, and not because of any major falling out. Geneva found no shortage of men to date her, although they’d mostly turned out to be a long line of dirtbags. Except for Jayce, of course.
Maybe.
But anyway, she would have no need for the silly little pact she made with Clark as children. Still, she didn’t know why she hadn’t forgotten about it by now, or why it gave her a vague sense of unease, as though they had unfinished business. She would be mortified if Clark ever brought it up himself, even as a joke.
They’d stayed distant, casual friends, but Geneva was starting to realize how little she’d seen of Clark in the last few years, and she didn’t know how much he’d changed. She could only hope he had completely forgotten about the stupid games they used to play and the stupid things they said when they were lonely, awkward kids.
“Forget it,” she said. “I’ve got something to do.”
Clark crossed his arms. His face was inscrutable, but she could tell he was interested. “I’ll show you what I found, if you’ll show me yours.”
“You probably shouldn’t say that in a bathroom,” Geneva pointed out.
Clark shifted off the counter. “It’s a big one,” he continued, as if he hadn’t heard, still completely deadpan.
Geneva rolled her eyes, but she felt a strange elation. It was so natural talking to Clark again. “Okay, let’s see it.
“Come on.” He plucked at her wrist but dropped it just as quickly. She appreciated that he glanced both ways down the hall before leading her out and to his own personal quarters.
“Just to be clear, you didn’t actually mean …” Geneva trailed off.
“This.” Clark produced a concave disk, which fit neatly in his palm.
“A hologram reader?”
“A hologram.” He activated it with a click. Beads of light shot into the air and materialized into a human form.
Geneva gasped. It was Lieutenant Blair, their friend who had been dead these last two years, since the Corpora Skirmish.
“I found some files,” Blair began, staring off into the distance, as though speaking to someone out of sight. “I think they could be dangerous. I think they could change everything.”