Page 17 of Love at First Sighting
Before I can give myself away with my flushed skin, I step into the next aisle over and begin to search.
We’re not going to stealthily commit treason if we’re eye fucking each other this whole time.
I skim boxes and folders, but the labeling on them is horrible . Their metadata is all kinds of fucked.
I pull a box off the shelf and open it. Each folder is marked with a series of numbers, and I don’t know what to make of them, so I yank one out and flip the pages open. The pages are old and fibrous. The words are typed in an aggressive, inky Courier font. I register a couple of words.
Extraterrestrial Biological Entities Autopsy
As I flip to the next page, I’m taken aback by what I’ve seen. It’s like something out of a sci-fi movie. No fucking way.
With a sharp gasp, Carter scurries over to me.
“We’re here to commit light treason, not major treason. Pretend you didn’t see that.”
“ Um? ” I gasp, flipping the page open again. “It’s a little alien body, Carter!”
“Yes, pretend you didn’t see the little alien body. Fuck, I am so fired.”
“Aliens are real . Did you know?”
“Legally, I cannot answer that.”
He forces me to shut the file and slide it back into place, but I’m going to be thinking about the gangly little gray man with his buggy eyes and confused, gaping mouth until I die.
It doesn’t actually impact my life if aliens are real or not, but I think it’s cool to know .
Perhaps if I do have to go the alien babe–brand route, that’s the sort of thing that’ll get me a solid collab with The Out There , Skroll’s paranormal and otherworldly investigation show.
Even though Skroll wrote a hit piece about me.
“Come on, we have to find the files. Fast. I don’t know how much time we’ve got before someone’s on to us.”
Carter explains begrudgingly that having no decent filing system makes sense for PIS and he tried to implement powerful change by creating a naming system they use now. That’ll be great for people fifteen years from now, but not so great for us at the moment.
I pull open another box along the back wall, and for the first time, it looks like progress. I’ve hit files dated around fifteen years ago. We’re getting closer.
“Carter? I think I’ve got something.”
I skim carefully, thumbing through each manila folder and stop at Brody .
I slip out a thick file. There’s a look of awe and excitement in Carter’s eyes.
As we flip open the folder together, a picture of his dad stares back at us.
It was obvious in the photo in his room, but it’s glaring here.
Carter’s dad looks exactly like him. Youthful, blond, and old-Hollywood handsome.
But where his dad is clean-cut and All American, Carter has scars and quirks and a certain shadowy edge to him that sets him apart.
I pass the folder to Carter and he skims. He flips past the first page quickly—all stats and history. Things from height and weight to blood type, social security number. It’s all things Carter either already knows or didn’t need to know. Behind the profile, there are more papers.
“These are cases my dad and Marcus worked together,” Carter mumbles.
He flips near the end of the file, and an insurance claim flutters to the floor. I grab it for him and pass it back.
“These were after his death. Settlements. Hang on.” He flips past a few pages to the last case, then back. Then forward again. “What? There’s nothing in here about his death at all .”
Carter passes me the folder and I begin to read.
The last thing in there is a vague case brief that seems way too simple.
It’s a UFOlogist who was trying to cause a stir on MySpace, and John and Marcus convinced him to quiet down without issue.
It’s not the type of case that’d lead to a suspicious death.
I flip back to an earlier page. There’s a printed letter stapled in with a photo and I take it out.
“Carter, does this make any sense to you?”
It’s a photo of John and another man, who I presume is Marcus.
Marcus gives strong I-am-untrustworthy energy with his stern brows and sharp jaw.
He looks like he’d have a six-episode villain arc on Angel City Noir , with his slicked-back hair and stern composure.
His strictness bleeds through the developed ink and I think of a whole childhood with this as my only form of family.
It feels even more baffling for Carter to be as warm and affable as he is.
Even more suspicious is the presence of Howard Forte in the photo with them.
Howard Forte is the recently deceased (due to “natural causes” but I think it might have been a coke bender mixed with a twenty-five-year-old girlfriend) British entrepreneur and founder of Terra, Inc.
Terra blossomed out of the Fortes’ inexplicable wealth, and he developed it into a tech empire, ranging from space technology to AI advancements and high-end aviation.
Terra was taken over by Howard’s son, Ian, just a year ago.
Ian is the kind of new-money asshole that fuckboys love and models want to fuck, despite being the world’s slipperiest-looking man.
Like he’s gotten really into deep-sea tourism lately.
But as someone who has seen The Meg and attended the premiere to The Meg 2: The Trench , I will not be attending any of his luxury submarine ventures anytime soon.
“What the hell?” Carter says. “That’s Howard Forte. What would they have been doing with him?”
I glance up at him and register the confusion and disappointment in his eyes.
“Does Terra work with PIS at all?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“It could explain the cloaked drones.”
Carter nods slowly and runs his thumb along his bottom lip. “It does. It most definitely does. I mean, a lot of departments outsource all kinds of contract work. From tech upgrades to infrastructure, vehicles, weapons, so I suppose it wouldn’t be impossible for Terra to have worked with PIS.”
“But do you take pictures with your contractors?”
“No.” As Carter flips through more case files, he pauses. “There are huge gaps of time missing from this file, El.”
“How long do jobs usually take?”
“Depends,” he explains, “but the ones left in here? These wouldn’t take long. These are one-and-done ventures. My dad was working a lot right up until the accident. There are things missing from this file. Jobs and the report on his accident.”
I flip over the photo of Howard, John, and Marcus and pass it to Carter. “This might have something to do with it.”
Grateful for you two and PIS. We will do great things together. —H
Carter’s jaw twitches and the picture flutters in his shaking hand. “Dated sixteen years ago. There’s nothing about jobs with them. I imagine if PIS had my dad and Marcus working on something, they’d have record of it. So I’ve got to find out from Marcus what he was doing with Terra—”
“Do you think he’s going to tell you? You said you two aren’t close. He hasn’t let you see your dad’s file, and now the part you want to see is missing. Carter, I’m not so sure he’s going to be down for an intel swap.”
Carter swallows hard. “What are you saying?”
“What if Marcus is hiding something?”
His eyes frantically dart around the room. “Of course it’s crossed my mind…but my dad was his best friend. You don’t—Look, Marcus can be a jerk sometimes, but there’s a big difference between jerk and criminal. What would he be trying to hide?”
That he had something to do with it.
“I don’t know,” I say. I can tell the idea will strike Carter in places he’s not ready to be hit.
I’m scared that maybe he can accept the idea of aliens and UFOs easier than Marcus betraying him.
“I mean, if this was happening sixteen years ago, when Howard was running Terra, and now it’s happening again… maybe Ian knows something about it.”
Carter raises his brows. “Right. Because getting an answer out of Marcus was too hard, we’ll just aim for Ian Forte instead. I’m sure that’ll be easier.”
I don’t exactly have the answer for him yet.
“What if we look—” I start.
A door handle jiggles and someone whistles in another room. Carter’s fingers wrap around my belt loop and he pulls me behind him.
“Leonard,” Carter says into his earpiece. We muted ourselves for privacy when we entered. “Is there someone else in the building with us?”
“Someone is coming from the break room. Crap.”
“Is there anything you can do for us?” Carter asks.
“Hope you aren’t afraid of the dark.”
There’s a sharp electronic hiss, and then the lights flicker off, plunging us both into darkness.