I STUB MY toe on the edge of the elevator, stumbling into the second floor’s hallway with a loud, “Ow!”
Very suave, Bee. Perhaps I shouldn’t have worn sandals. Perhaps I should have stayed at home. Perhaps I’m going insane.
Whatever. I’ll go to my office, check my computer for anything weird, return home with my tail between my legs. What else do I have to do? My scientific career is over, my good name is soon to be besmirched, and I’m at once too emotionally unavailable to be with the man I love and too in love with him to deal with my own choices. I can spare twenty minutes to sleuth before I go back to browsing the Teen Drama hidden code on Netflix and wishing vegan Chunky Monkey existed.
My (former?) office looks like it always does—homey, cluttered. No sign of Félicette. I sit at my desk, log in. Sure enough, if I navigate to the Twitter page, my password seems to be saved. My heart thuds. My stomach lurches.
I look around, but the building is deserted. Okay. Okay, so someone could have conceivably accessed WWMD from this computer.
And messaged the STC guy? Yikes.
But who? Rocío? No. Not my little goth. Levi? Nah. He was in bed with me every night in the past weeks, and most of the time we weren’t even sleeping. Who else, then? And why would they contact STC posing as me?
To make me look bad. But why? These kinds of machinations require a degree of committed hatred that someone like me could never inspire. I’m too boring.
I drum my fingers, wondering if I’m a lunatic, when something else occurs to me. Something much, much bigger: if someone logged into my computer, they wouldn’t just have access to my stupid social media, but to BLINK’s server, too.
“Holy shit.”
I navigate to the server repository. “No way.” I click on the folder where the documents pertaining to today’s demonstration are. “Impossible. I’m crazy. No one would—” How the hell did Levi access the logs? God, I hate engineers. They always type so quickly. “Was it—here? Where the hell did he click? Ah, yes—” I open the log for the file used for Guy’s brain stimulation. The one I finalized three days ago. The one that should be locked to anyone except for me.
It was modified last night. At 1:24 a.m. By me.
Except that last night I was tossing and turning in bed.
Okay. So it was modified by someone on this computer.
“Who the fuck—”
“Are you okay?”
I startle so hard, I yelp and throw my mouse across the room. It misses Guy by a few inches.
“Oh my God.” I press my hand against my mouth. “I’m sorry—you scared me and I—” I laugh into my palm, high on relief, low-key thankful I didn’t shit my pants. It was touch and go for a second. “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t trying to kill you for the second time in one day!”
He smiles, leaning against the doorframe. “Third time’s the charm.”
“Oh, God.” I press a hand against my forehead. My heart’s calming down, and I remember the last time I saw Guy. He didn’t look good. Because I gave him a seizure. “How are you?”
He gestures at himself with a self-deprecating smile.
“Back to my hunky self. You don’t look too good, though.” “I’m having an . .
. interesting day. Guy, I want to apologize for what happened today. I take full responsibility for—”
“You shouldn’t.”
“I should.” I lift my hand. “I absolutely should. It looks like something weird is happening—I’ll show you. But that doesn’t matter. With your safety at stake I should have been more careful. I take full responsibility, and—”
“You shouldn’t,” he repeats, his tone a touch firmer. Something about it rubs me wrong. His eyes are usually a warm golden-brown, but tonight there’s an odd coldness about them.
I realize that I have no idea why he’s here. Well past eleven. In my office.
After a day spent at the hospital, shouldn’t he be resting? I’m pretty sure he should be resting.
“Are you . . . did you forget something?” I stand to obstruct his view of my monitor, not quite knowing why.
“It’s late.”
“Yeah.” He shrugs. I’m acutely conscious that he’s blocking the only exit.
I’m also acutely conscious that I’m a raving lunatic. This is Guy. My friend.
Levi’s friend. An astronaut. I just gave him a seizure, for fuck’s sake. Of course he looks weird.
“Are you . . . I was heading home. I’m done with . . . what I came for.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Want to leave together?”
He doesn’t move. “You said there was something weird you wanted to show me?” Why is he not smiling?
“No, I . . .” I wipe my palm against the side of my thigh. It’s gross, clammy.
My grandmother’s ring catches on the seam. “I misspoke.”
“I don’t think you did.”
