Morgan Abrams
Lockdown in progress, please hold…
It’s getting hard to hear yourself think in your own head. All the panic and fear crowding out your own thoughts. Jagged sharp-edged feelings of pain and, with it, the worry that someone else out there has already been hurt by this thing.
Can the Imago even see out of its eyes any more?
How is it sensing anything for that matter?
Something to do with magnetism?
It paws and batters at the machine, finds the seam of the lid and starts gnawing at it. Tentacles rising above and behind the head wave about like they were in water. Maybe those are a sensory organ? It has to be able to seek out more nanites somehow, right?
The creature looks occupied for the moment, but you don’t trust that. Those tentacles in the air seem too… alert? Like raised ears. Or maybe you’re making things up—you have no idea how this works. You’d feel better if the thing was further away from Brayden’s hiding spot though.
“Do you have anything to throw?” you sign to Riley.
She stares at you.
You mime picking up something and throwing it. “For a distraction,” you add.
She looks around. Reaches past you and grabs a rock from the palm tree’s pot. “Remember, no getting us killed,” she warns.
“P-promise.”
You take the rock from her and lean around the corner. If you can just…
You throw as hard as you can. The stone scatters across the ground, nowhere near the broken window. The Imago doesn’t even look up. Okay… second try?
The next rock goes wide, bouncing off the wall.
Still nothing.
Fine, fine, third time’s the– from beside you, Riley huffs. “Let me do it.”
You move over, give her space as she grabs another rock. Takes aim. Hers hits home, clattering off the already shattered window. There’s a crackle of glass as a few loose shards are jarred free. The Imago jerks its head up, tentacles going rigid. After a second, it relaxes and shuffles over to inspect the window again. It presses its front legs up against the wall, sticking its head through to the other side. You can hear it. Huffing and sniffing.
You risk looking away to survey the hallway again. Plenty of signs of people leaving in a hurry. A lost shoe, dropped bags, but no bodies. Thank god. You’ve never seen a dead body in person and you’d like to keep it that way.
You catch Brayden’s eye and wave a hand, urging him over. He hesitates, looking at the monster. It’s found something on the other side of the window that it must like, its long furry tail waving through the air, making loud snuffling noises as it chomps and chews its way through… something.
You gesture again. If Brayden keeps sitting there he’s going to lose his chance, the idiot. Finally he makes up his mind and darts across the hall. The Imago goes silent, its strange appendages on rigid alert. It’s going to notice. Going to turn its weeping gaze on all three of you and give chase.
Don’t don’t don’t don’t–
Brayden ducks under the gate and all three of you pull back around the corner. Huddle together on the floor. Palms sweaty and hearts pounding.
“What the fuck are you idiots doing here?” Brayden hisses.
“Don’t look at me,” Riley points at you, “this was his idea.”
“Are you trying to get yourselves killed?”
“Where’s the gratitude for saving your life, dude?”
“Did you? What if I’m sick now!” Brayden pats himself down, before pulling at his face. Working himself up into a panic attack with sharp rapid breaths as his thoughts run wild.
“Dude, moumentai.”
“This could be it, how fast does it happen? Oh god–”
“It’s not a– a zombie bite,” you whisper. He has got to get it together. “It t-t-takes weeks. And you’d be s-s-spitting silver gunk outta– outta everything.”
“Yeah, see?” Riley says, backing you up by patting Brayden on the back. “You’ve still got plenty of time to write that will.”
“You don’t know that–”
A sudden sharp whine cuts off the argument. The dog-monster yanks its head back out of the window, spitting something out from between its teeth, pawing at its mouth like a stung animal. The offender, a tiny rectangular box, tumbles across the floor, leaking silver from a tooth-shaped puncture through the plastic.
Brayden sucks in his breath, his panic momentarily forgotten. “Holy shit, that’s–”
“Quiet!” you snap, louder than you intended.
The Imago jerks its head in the direction of your hiding spot, one paw still pulling at its snout, scattering fur and blood and silver liquid across the floor. Then all four feet are back on the ground as it shoves its nose into the air, ears pinned back, tail straight. With halting movements it drags itself toward the junction. Something like a growl comes out of its mouth, if a growl were distressingly wet.
Brayden scrambles back with a yelp, falling on his butt. Riley grabs him, pulls him up and back. Chants a litany of ‘shit shit shit’ under her breath.
“Th-th-the gate,” you manage. “We– we gotta–”
“Shut the gate?” Riley finishes for you. “Would that work?”
No – nope – it’s already moving, you can hear it – feel it.
“Next g-gate! Next gate!”
Brayden’s already back on his feet, running down the hall. Riley grabs you by the shirt and pulls you along. You stumble as you get your feet under you, brace against the wall for balance.
From behind there’s the noise of claws scraping tile. An ear-splitting bark from the Imago as it slides into the intersection you just left. You risk a look back to see the thing crashing its head against the half-lowered gate where the three of you just stood. Tentacles wave wildly through the air as it twists its head this way and that. The remains of its ruined snout thrust upward, eyes rolling wildly. It can’t see. It can’t see or smell and that’s the only thing saving the three of you from it running the rest of the way down the hall and ripping out your throats.
Riley gets to the gate at the far end of the hall just ahead of you, ducking underneath. You roll under soon after, watch as Riley and Brayden bang and pull at the gate until something finally jars loose and the thing clatters the rest of the way down. Sound echoes down the hall and the Imago barks in response, charging after.
“Oh fuck–”
Brayden backs away while Riley helps you up. Almost to your feet when a loud clanging crash reverberates through your bones. The security gate buckles under the full weight of the Imago. A single paw forces its way underneath, clawing at the floor. When it makes no progress the creature pulls back, a low rumbling growl coming from somewhere deep inside its throat.
“We– we should be safe now, right?” says Riley, breathless. Staring.
Brayden’s face is pale and bloodless. Still on the verge of panic. “Are we? It bent the fucking gate, what if it–”
A metallic screech as the Imago throws itself at the gate a second time. Brayden yelps, stumbling backward as a visible dent deforms the metal slats. Still intact, just barely.
Can feel the shape of the dog-thing’s presence filling up the static. Been there the whole time, you realize. Sharp-edged and pained. Thought it was just the mass panic of lockdown but– You grimace, hand to your head. Is it hurting or are you? A mishmash of images, meaningless noise like your brain forgot how to make vision work. The electric smell of ozone permeates everything.
“Morgan? Morgan what the fuck are you doing!?”
There’s a hand on your shoulder, trying to pulling you back. You resist, trying to move forward. Someone whisper-yelling furiously in your ear. Your nerves light up like white fire, a step toward yourself and you almost fall too heavy too light wrong wrong wrong–
From behind – on the other side of the gate, there’s a cascade of pops – of gunfire. Pain explodes across your back whilst the Imago staggers against the gate. Heart in your mouth. Someone catches you, pulls you back and the presence of the Imago is gone with all the intensity of a rubber band snapping.
A migraine explodes behind your eyes as you bend over. Blindly patting yourself down for assurance that the ghostly echoes of pain blooming across your back and legs aren’t really yours.
There’s another chorus of gun fire. Something wet and guttural howls out in response as Riley pulls you further away, down a side alley.
Dizzy. The walls spinning around you.
Vaguely aware of someone talking. Then multiple someones, all at once.
“Are you kids okay?” Hands patting you down, pulling you through a doorway. “Oh my god, is he hurt?”
Something on your face tickles. You pull your mask down to rub a hand under your nose and come back with it covered in red.
Fucking hell. Again?
And then your knees buckle and black fills in from the edges of your vision.
***
“Morgan!”
“Morgan wake up you fucking piece of shit!”
Hand patting his face. Not a full-on slap.
Not yet.
I’m working up to it.
You groan, blink against the light as your vision comes filtering back in. Raise an arm to protect your face. Stop Riley from going harder.
“Mrrgh,” you chirp, try to fend her off. Why is she– stop touching. Need space. Need air.
She relents, sits back in the chair beside you – you’re on a bed? – and lets out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “Oh thank fuck.”
The first thing you notice is her mask is gone. So is yours, you realize. Her face is flushed. Expression twisted up in a mixture of concern and relief.
“What…?”
You wince. Your head feels like it got cracked open. Brain poured out, frozen, and badly crammed back in. You shift up on your arms. Yup, you recognize this sight a little too well. Hospital style bed. White sheets. Tiled ceiling above you, with soft sodium-yellow inset lights. A white curtain is drawn across in a half moon, a pretense of privacy.
You have got to stop ending up in places like this, nothing good ever happens in rooms like these.
You stare up at the ceiling, digging through a bunch of foggy images. “D-d-did I faint?”
“Yeah you did, you asshole! Twice!” Riley punches you in the shoulder. Light, holding back. “Are you okay?”
“I’m alive, I– I think. Maybe....?” Your left hand is itching, pressure and texture. On inspection it looks like you’ve been hooked up with an IV needle. Your eyes trace the line of the tube all the way up to the saline bag hanging beside the bed. “Oh.”
Now that she’s assured you aren’t dying, Riley’s mood is taking a turn for the pissed. “The nurse said your blood sugar was shit. Please tell me you ate today.”
“Uh– well. I b-b-bought a sandwich?”
Riley leans in. “And did you eat the sandwich?”
“What, um, what happened? We’re in the-the-the hospital?” you ask, averting your eyes from her glare. Look anywhere else, the off-white of the window curtains, the subtle piss-colored glow of the ceiling lights.
“Urgent Care,” Riley corrects you. Still glaring. “You don’t remember?”
“Um…” You massage the sides of your head, trying to sort through a series of bleary half-memories. “Sort of? Sorry um–”
“You at least remember the monster that almost ate us, right?”
“Y-yeah…” A shudder passes through you.
“Riley made me drag your sorry ass into the nearest restroom before security could see us,” comes a second familiar voice. You catch Brayden standing over by the window-screen, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. One eye looking out at whatever’s going on past the curtain.
Your head is swimming like someone poured your brains out into a bowl of jello, each scattered memory a free-floating fruit. “D-d-did they kill it?”
Riley blinks, thrown off by the question. “Huh?”
You make the sign for Imago.
“What? I don’t know?” Riley throws her hands in the air. “We were a little busy getting out the fucking line of fire.”
“And I’m telling you they totally saw us. Even if they didn’t it’ll be all over the fucking security video,” Brayden snaps.
No one’s wearing their mask anymore, you realize. You included.
Riley turns her head to answer him. “Look, either we get fined for breaking lockdown or we don’t. At least this way we’re all alive. Anyway, Morgan, the security sweep picked us up like, fifteen minutes later, took one look at you and dropped us all off at the closest Urgent Care.”
Brayden rolls his eyes. He holds up his arm for you to see the bandage wrap. “They made us all get fucking vaccinated.”
You look at Riley’s arm. Look down at your own. At least none of you are going to turn into that any time soon. In the swimming morass of feelings that possibly still compose your brain, you can pick out the building soreness in the arm. Given your condition, an Imago vaccination is supposed to be a last resort. If you’d been more lucid you probably could have argued your way out of it.
You remember getting vaccinated once before as a little kid. The side effects were brutal. You let out a breath.
Goodbye weekend.
“How– how long w-w-was I out?”
“I don’t know.” Riley pauses at the look you give her. “It’s been like, an hour, I guess? It feels longer. When you came to, that first time, you were kinda incoherent?”
“You were crying over the fucking Imago, of all things.” Brayden is staring at you, thoughts working overtime to put everything together.
Riley winces. “Yeah. There was that.”
“I… w-was?”
“You don’t remember any of this?” Brayden asks.
You shake your head.
“How do you not remember?”
“I… have a-a-a– a condition.”
“A condition,” he repeats.
“Y-yeah.” Is he buying it? He should. It’s not like you’re lying. Technically.
“And this ‘condition’ of yours just happens to involve random-ass nose bleeds and fainting.”
“Uh… yeah?” You glance at Riley. This is not the time to get into this.
“I told you, B-man,” she says, swooping in to bail you out. “It’s a stress thing. I’ve seen it happen before. Anyway, so, when the nurse got your account number and saw you were B-Class they made sure to get you good stuff. After that you got all silent and uh, well, I got scared.” Her cheeks turn red and she looks away.
Brayden crosses his arms, a ghost of a smirk threatening to cross his face. “They were going to separate us all but Riley threw a fit until they let us wait in your room.”
“Fuck you, dude!” Riley fumes, the red in her face only deepening as she flips her middle finger at him.
‘The good stuff?’ That must be why your headache isn’t at mental shutdown levels of pain right now. Still. Now you’re going to have track down that nurse before you leave and make sure whatever it was isn’t going to have a bad reaction with your usual meds.
You shake your head. “Sorry.”
“S’fine,” Riley says in that particular tone of voice she uses when things are anything but.
“Is-is-is–” Stop. Breathe. “Are you two okay?” you ask.
“We could have all just fucking died, what do you think?” Brayden says. Can see now how his hands are shaking. This close, you can pick out the undercurrent of panic running through his body without having to try very hard.
“Fuck me dude, I don’t know. If I have nightmares tonight, it’s on you.” Riley punches your shoulder, harder this time. You wince. “What about you? Are you okay?”
You give the most honest answer you can come up with: “Maybe? D-did um, did they uh–”
“Did they lift lockdown?” Riley finishes for you. You nod. “Uuuuuh– Not yet. And that’s the only reason my parents haven’t stormed up here and skinned me alive.”
Yeah.
Can’t wait for Rivka to get to that either. You are beyond dead by the end of tonight.
Riley sighs. “If security saw us breaking lockdown… goodbye new implant money.”
Guilt twists your stomach. “S-s-sorry.”
“You fucking owe me for saving your ass, dude.”
“Y-yeah.” You slump over, massaging the sides of your head as you try to order your thoughts together.
How much do you have in your account? You hardly ever use it really, except to eat out. Maybe– No, wait, you can fix this. “Where’s my-my-my um, my tablet?”
Riley gives you a look. “In your pocket…?”
You pat yourself down. Right. Right, okay, there it is. Great. You can fix this. Flip the thing open, get your cable out – you thrust it into Riley’s hands with a request to find a port.
“Any port?” she asks.
“A-any.”
With a baffled expression, she does, plugging your tablet into a connection port behind you on the wall. Brayden watches this with growing confusion as you scroll through the text running across the screen.
“What are you doing?”
“Yeah, seriously,” Riley agrees, “are you sure you should be doing anything uh… thinky right now?”
You hush them with a finger over your lips. “T-t-trust me.”
After all the work you just put into this, getting back into the security system feels surprisingly straightforward. Your brand new admin account is right there, just waiting for you to take advantage of it. A search call through the Super of the corridor with the Imago, and there’s the video. Playing out from a dozen different angles.
Now you can run a pass over the video. Edit out the three of you or delete it altogether. Just a question of what’s better on the risk/time efficiency scale. Then follow that up with making sure any auto-gen’d reports get cleared.
The other two fall into an uneasy silence while you work.
Brayden huffs, steps towards Riley—made up his mind. She opens her mouth to say something only to stop as he shoves a card in her face.
She takes it. “What the hell is this?”
“The rest of the money. For… you know.”
”But–“
“Fucking Christ, Riley. Just take it okay?”
“Okay. Thanks,” Riley says. Stunned, she pockets the payment card. “Guess there was an upside to saving your life.”
He frowns at that, but chooses to ignore it. Instead he says, “We have to tell Security about this.”
“Dude, I’d love a statue in my honor but I don’t think they’ll care.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.” Brayden sucks in his breath, clenching his hands before looking at you. “Morgan, are you in the security system right now?”
“Yes. I c-c-can, um-” Should probably still watch what you say or you’ll have to add this room to the list of things to wipe. “I can fix, uh. This. Clear it up. At least so we d-d-don’t get, um, get fined.”
“Shit. Seriously?” Riley leans back. “Uh, no take-backs on the money, Bray.”
“It’s fine, whatever.” Brayden says waving her off. “Morgan, I thought you said you needed–”
“M-m-made my self a, uh, a backdoor.”
“A what?
“It’s f-fine now,” you insist. Can set things up so it looks like any requests are coming from a completely normal and very different location in the arcology. As long as no one looks too closely it should be fine. And why should they? Half the operation of the arcology is automated.
“Okay…” Brayden takes a breath, putting his thoughts together. “Can you check something first? Before you… fix things?”
You look up at him.
“Can you check to see what that box was? The one the dog-thing was bothered by?”
Riley and you exchange looks. The box? What? What box? What the fuck is he– Oh. The box. You can almost see it writ large in a composite of Brayden’s and your memory. The hand-sized plastic box that sent the dog-Imago whining.
“What the hell are you talking about, dude?” Riley asks.
“Just– can you look? This is important,” Brayden says, ignoring her. He runs a hand through his hair. “Maybe it’s nothing. I hope it’s nothing.”
You find it in the camera footage and both Brayden and Riley come around to watch over your shoulder. The moment the Imago was poking its head through the broken window. Switching to a different camera brings up a view of the wrecked interior of the grocery store, the dog-monster shaking its head around whilst a shockingly long tongue whips through the air. It wraps around boxes and cans, tossing them around, until finally it lands on singular white plastic box stuck to the wall.
The tongue snaps back into the Imago’s mouth, still wrapped around the box which crashes against the side of the creature’s maw. It cracks open and the reaction is almost immediate. The Imago yanks itself back from the window. You switch to a different camera where you can see the creature shake the box loose, pawing madly at its own face.
“That fucking box,” Brayden repeats, watching the video. “It’s the same box from the video we watched where Cass was getting blackmailed.”
Welp. Looks like you’re scrubbing the security footage of this room after all.
Riley frowns, raising an eyebrow. “What? No way.”
“Fucking check then,” Brayden hisses.
Fine, whatever. You minimize the recording of the Imago and bring back up the ones you saved with Rivka and Cassandra. You find the clip of Rivka handing over a bag of ‘air readers’ and showing Cassandra how to place them. Brayden leans over, jamming his finger right on the screen.
“D-d-don’t smudge the screen,” you protest, shoving his hand away.
“That’s them. They’re the same ones.”
Riley scoffs. “Dude, even if that’s true, so what?”
“This is the first Imago attack inside the Arcology in years – maybe ever. And you’re asking me so what?”
“That box could be anything, dude.”
You take a screen capture of the box as close as you can manage, then switch back to the recording of the Imago attack and do the same for that box. “Th-they do look… similar.”
Why did it have that reaction though?
You screw your eyes shut, trying to think through the fog. Each thought feels like an island floating in a cloud bank, resisting any effort to link them together. Shake your head. Look back to the recording of the Imago attack, scroll through the available footage.
Don’t have to go far to see where it all starts. A woman in a pink sundress has a Labrador retriever on a leash as they go shopping together. The dog looks… you’re not really sure how dogs are supposed to behave but this one seems normal? It certainly doesn’t seem sick. At some point, walking along an aisle, the dog refuses to follow the woman, pulling back on the leash, shaking it’s head.
The woman, confused and annoyed, tries to force the dog to keep walking, only to drop the leash with a scream audible on her face as the dog’s skin begins to split open. This is all wrong. The transformation isn’t supposed to happen that quickly. There are warning signs. Time for treatment.
“Guys, do we really need to watch this?” Riley asks. “This is just upsetting. That poor dog.”
You pause the video, scrutinizing the frame. Brayden sees it before you do. “There! There’s that fucking box. I knew it.”
Riley stares at the screen for a moment before looking back to Brayden. “I don’t get it. What are you trying to say?”
“I’m saying that stupid box or ‘reader’ or whatever it is is connected to Imago.”
“Y-y-you mean NMIV,” you correct him.
He rolls his eyes. “Whatever. Look, it’s doing something – it had an effect on that dog before it even transformed. The same day we find out Morgan’s mom is making my girlfriend put out these weird boxes we find one of those exact same boxes not only in the same place an Imago attack occurred, but triggering it?”
Riley is gripping the edge of the mattress as Brayden talks. The weight of what he’s implying settling in. “Orrrrrr it’s all just a coincidence.”
“Get real. Something fucked up is going on here guys. This is an attack. Some sort of Tomorrowist bullshit.”
You balk. “My– She– Rivka’s n-n-not a terrorist.”
Sure Rivka hates the government. Hates the company. Hates most people, in all likelihood. But this? She couldn’t – she wouldn’t. How dare he even suggest that?
“We have to tell Security about this. You both saw how that thing reacted right?”
“I… was a little pre-occupied with our imminent demise at the time.”
“In the fucking video,” he clarifies through clenched teeth. “This shit is serious, Riley. There’s never been an attack inside the arcology before and now all this happens? Tell me there’s not a connection.”
“Okay – Sure. Say we do. ‘See something say something’ and all that, right? What do you think is gonna happen, man? For all we know, this is some official Praxis thing Morgan’s mom is doing. If we tell, we’ll have to explain how we even found out to begin with. We’ll be getting ourselves in a shitload of trouble and probably get your girlfriend fired for breaking an NDA. And that’s like, the best case scenario.”
“We can’t just do nothing!” Brayden hisses, frustration seeping out. “What if this happens again? We almost fucking died, what if anyone else gets hurt? Or worse?”
“That’s Security’s problem–”
“Which they won’t be prepared for if they don’t realize exactly what we’re dealing with here!”
“How would they not know? They’ve got access to all the same video.”
“We– we gotta look into-to-to it.” Realize you said that out loud when you feel Riley and Brayden both staring at you. Shit.
“Us,” you say, repeating yourself. “D-d-directly.”
Riley frowns, squinting down at you. “Uh, why?”
“I don’t trust you,” Brayden says at the same time.
“I want– need to-to-to know.” She couldn’t– she wouldn’t– what would be the point? But you never would have imagined her forcing a teenage girl into working for her either. You shake your head and immediately regret the action, headache throbbing. The lights in the room proving too much to handle, you squeeze your eyes shut. Suck in your breath as you wince.
“Easy, tough guy,” Riley says.
You switch to ASL. “Brayden’s freaking out. We all are. That was…”
“That was fucked up,” Riley agrees, finishing the sentence for you. “Don’t ever make me do something like that again, man.”
You give her a pained smile. “Sorry.”
“Uh, hello?” Brayden looks between the two of you. “I’m right here.”
“Give us a minute, man,” Riley snaps at him. Turns back to look at you. “You’re really on board with this?” she signs.
You take a second before responding. It takes real effort to piece your own thoughts together through the haze of brain fog and static.
“If we don’t–” everything you wanted to sign vanishes from your mind. Grit your teeth and try again. “If we don’t, he’ll just go to Security. We’ll get in trouble for hacking. Breaking and entering. A mess. And… what if there is something to it? What if Brayden is right? And it’s not just a coincidence?”
Riley stares at you, a disbelieving frown on her face. “Are you seriously letting Brayden of all people get to you?”
You bite your lip.
“I forgot how frustrating it was not to understand what you two are saying,” Brayden butts in verbally.
You ignore him. Riley shoots him a smirk. “Should have gotten in on the lessons when you could have dude.”
“Yeah, yeah. Look, Morgan. This is straight up a terrorist attack, right?”
“We don’t know that for sure, dude,” Riley cuts in.
Brayden huffs. “Fine. It’s maybe a terrorist attack. And it just so happens to look just like the ones the Tomorrowists used to do all over the country. How the fuck is anyone supposed to trust you with trying to prove whether your mom is involved in all this?”
“Sh-sh-she’s not,” you snap. “She’s not– Look, Brayden. Without– without us, you don’t have any, um, any proof to show Security. So. If– if you want to-to-to help Cassandra, then w-w-working with us is the only way to– to do it. We can um, we can look into things more. Talk to Cassandra. If there is a, um, a connection then we can… consider talking to– to um, you know. Security.”
Brayden scowls as you talk. He shifts his weight, staring down at you even after you finish. Trying to make up his mind. Finally, he throws his hands up with a huff. “Fine.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m going the bathroom. And then I’m calling my parents,” he says, pocketing his phone.
“D-d–”
“I’m not gonna tell anyone. But if we’re gonna do this, we’re going to actually do this, got it? If it starts to look like you two are just trying to wait me out, I’m going straight to Security.”
Riley fake-laughs. “Do we look like the type to lie?”
Brayden doesn’t answer that. “Message me tonight if your parents don’t kill you both.”
The two of you watch him duck past the curtain, stomping his way outside. Riley then turns to grin at you, clapping her hands together. “Hell yeah, alright. The OG Sour Grapes ride again.”
You make a face. Brayden might claim to feel bad about what happened, but that doesn’t mean you’re ready to welcome him back with open arms. The guy still came into this wanting to spy on his girlfriend, for crying out loud.
“More like Rotten Apples at this point,” you sign.
Riley’s eyes widen and she doubles over, hands on her mouth to stifle a laugh. You struggle to keep your face neutral, something in your stomach fluttering at getting her to laugh. It wasn’t that funny a joke, was it?
“If I survive my parents, I’ll see about setting up a group chat or something for us?”
“Read those articles I sent you already.”
“Alright, alright! Give me a break!” Riley grins. She moves to stand up, her expression wavering as she looks back down at you. “Don’t do anything else stupid, okay?”
“Never in my life,” you sign back, expression stoic.