Starts with a Match

This Wasn't in the Job Description

Seya's full of shit, as per usual. There is no Stephanie Jackson. I check as far into the JBLM database as my clearance allows—Hannah was always better at digging than me, or Jim, and I can't ask either of them to help out. Jim's gone pretty quiet except for the occasional text; I hear more from Beth these days than him. And Hannah's off grid, which fucking sucks.

I get irritated and go to Facebook, fucking LinkedIn. Bother Beth about any past spouses who'd been in the group, and I text Toby and ask if the name is familiar. They ask for a picture, of course. I nearly end the convo with 'love you'. Awkward.

All over I got nothing. Waste of my entire morning. Forced all my paperwork to get pushed into the last four hours of my shift.

Miss my comfy home office chair. Ones at work are prehistoric. Don's sitting next to met at the computers, half-oozing out of his own chair with his hat over his eyes. His snoring is the only noise in here as everyone's at lunch. That, and my brain slamming fists at the walls, screaming 'love Toby' on repeat like a child shrieking for attention.

Holding in a groan to not wake Donovan, I close out of Pinterest—I got incredibly desperate looking for this fucking mystery person Seya's crafted up—and I shove my phone aside, loading up my work email. Most of the stuff I can check on my regular Yahoo account, but since the boarder, Hockins has started sending us deployment updates through the encrypted, safe sites you can only get to using the computers on post.

Little envelope is lit up on the left side of the menu, showing I've got something in my inbox. Clicking on it, I stare at the screen for a solid thirty seconds in utmost 'what the shit' mode.

It's all letters, jumbled with numbers. I can't read any single words in the entire block of text.

First thoughts: Mistype? Butterfingers? Someone keysmashed with their forehead and sent this to me by accident?

Second thoughts: I'm not supposed to be reading this. I look up to the ancient ceiling tiles, the lights that have flickered for the last five decades. I look to the door, the silent office space, ears honing in on any kind of tick of bomb or cock of gun in the hall. Silence.

Staring back at the screen after squeezing my eyes shut and blinking repeatedly, I get what looks like a word in the mishmash.

(@r.ri3r. Carrier?

I kick Donovan and he jolts with a snort. "Hey, wake up," I hiss at him, reaching over and pulling him to the best of my ability toward me. He grumbles and assists, pushing himself with his heels, until he thumps a heavy arm on my armrest, dropping his cheek to my shoulder.

"Fuck you want, Kooper," he sighs, rubbing the heel of his hand into his eye.

"I got an email, look."

"Congratulations—"

"No, dude, look, look."

Don glares at me and sighs again, sitting up and squinting at my screen. He only gives it one look and his eyes are widening as he sits forward. "Who sent this?" he asks.

The hair on the back of my neck stands up at the way he's instantly alert.

"Don't know. Sender isn't a name I recognize," I tell him, circling my mouse repeatedly around the sender NE.Yan@RedRoverUnit.com.

"Not someone I know either. From Red Unit?" he mutters, more to himself, fingers tapping over his lower lip. "This is code."

"Obviously," I reply. He sends me a look that says he knows it wasn't obvious to me until he said that. "From who, and of what?"

He ignores me and goes for his pocket, pulling out a notepad and a pen. "You're on your flash drive, right?"

"Right."

"Wipe it after."

My jaw drops so fast it makes my ears pop. "Donovan absolutely not, are you fucking kidding me—"

"You have to, Kooper—"

"You know what kinda shit I got saved to my drive? The kind of hot water I'd be in if I deleted it? I can't do that—"

He stares straight through me. "Kevin. Delete this email. And wipe your drive afterward. Whatever you got on there is not nearly as important as this."

The look on his face reminds me of Jim. Or Elijah. Sharp and serious and 'I'd take a bullet for you right here and now' mixed with 'do not fucking cross me'.

I close my mouth and nod, and he starts scratching shit out on his pad, head darting up to look at the email every few words.

Two minutes pass and he's flipping his notepad closed. "Wipe it."

I take ten seconds too long to respond, and he stands from his seat, shadowing over me. "Wipe your drive, Kevin. Now." Without a hand on me, I feel just as boxed in as I did at the ball with Seya's fingers on my neck.

I look over all the saved documents and high priority shit I got on my drive, and swallow and hit delete all. It asks me three times if I'm sure. Not in the slightest.

Pulling the drive from the USB port, Donovan takes it from me, drops it to the tile, and smashes it with his boot heel.

—

I've been kidnapped and now I'm back at fucking Dutch Bros.

Donovan presses in on me next to a wall of windows, and I'm fighting to not turtle into my shoulders and snap apart at the amount of noise in here during the lunch rush. "Dude, do we really have to—"

"This is for you," he says, handing me his notepad. I frown but take it, and he keeps flashing on his charm, flipping his perfect hair, and though I know he's clearly trying to act natural; it still makes my skin crawl. He can hide his nervousness all he wants, but his fingers still tap erratically on the coffee he bought two minutes ago.

"What the shit is it, Don?"

"It was code, like I said," he repeats into his drink.

"But from who—and how the hell do you know code? Is this like Morse code or Black Code or what?"

"No, it's literally computer coding," he says, laughing at nothing and patting my back.

"When did you learn how to computer code?" And if he's been so smart this whole time, why has he been happy slumming it with us down at the bottom of red unit? He could've been making bank in the tech world—shit, same with Hannah. Being tech savvy ain't in the job description for grunts. Being expendable is.

He flashes his eyes at me and scoffs. "I built my own gaming computer when I was eleven, Kooper. I was on the robotics team all through high school. I know computer code, and that," he nods his head to the pad in my hand, "that's code. And it's a message to you."

I can't force happy and chill as well as he can, so I lower my head read his perfect handwriting.

I laugh first, and that's when Don's smiling eyes finally look a little more real.

'Hey Scorch, it's Neon'.