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SS8

Trust your gut

By Blake LockhartPublished 2 years ago 5 min read
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SS8
Photo by Jean-Philippe Delberghe on Unsplash

Pace and Lamont's conversation was interrupted by three subtle, but loud knocks on the door. "Who is it?" Pace asked throwing the papers on his desk into a drawer, while Lamont pressed the button under the desk to shut the metal door on the side of the room. "Keelan reporting." Both of the men looked at each other in confusion. The guards were supposed to introduce anyone who entered the building, the visitor wasn’t able to speak until they had permission to do so in their quarters. "Keelan?" Pace asked looking through the Xray technology, seeing that it really was Keelan on the other side of the door. "Open the door before she gets suspicious." Pace said as Lamont quickly walked to the door, while putting on a calm demeanor. He opened the door to Keelan patiently waiting. She looked at Lamont and gave him a grin, "Thank you." She sashayed into the room and met Pace's confused eyes. "Keelan, how did you get in here?" Lamont asked as he looked into the hallway lined with guards and verification pods. "I walked into the door that you just let me in." she answered, taking a seat at Pace's desk. "Keelan, how in the world did you get past-" he was interrupted. "I'll tell you when you can tell me, what yall have been hiding from me." Pace's face wrinkled and he studied Keelan for a moment. He noticed her calm demeanor and comfortable posture. She crossed her legs and began playing with her coarse hair. Lamont was still trying to figure out how she got past all the guards, with an invalid verification as he stood beside her, trying to silently warn Pace about the piece of paper on his desk. Pace hadn't gotten the message, he was now distracted by Keelan, who was waiting silently for a response. "What are you talking about Keelan?" He asked. "I'm talking about the late meetings, low whispers, and increased security around here," she answered. Lamont snickered, "And who are you? You don’t have A1 auth, we don’t have to tell you anything." "You're right, you don't." Keelan said, keeping the same demeanor. "SOOO, why are you here?" Lamont asked stepping in front of her. " Lamont, chill out." Pace said with a grin. "I don't know how you got through here, and I'm going to figure it out. But, judging by the fact that you did get in here. Successfully. You are really trying to get to something. Why do you think we have "it"? He said making his fingers quotation marks. Keelan sat up a bit, "I don’t "think" you have it, I know you do. "It" is information that is too delicate to even mention out loud… Do you have a pen?" she asked. Pace opened his drawer and filed through it until he found a pen, he handed it to her. "Can I have your hand, please?" She asked standing up at the desk. Lamont stood beside them looking closely. "My hand?" Pace asked standing up on the opposite side. "Yes." she answered. "Wait!" Lamont shouted. "This is the same person who got past all them guards ,you sure you want to give her your hand?" Keelan grinned and studied both of them. Pace looked back at Keelan and stated, "No tricks." "No tricks." she repeated. He reached out his hand slowly and she took it.

She then wrote on his hand, balled it up and pushed it back towards him. "Don't open it until I leave, and once you’ve read it, wipe it off. Come get me when you're ready to talk." With that, she smiled at both of them as they watched her leave the room. Lamont quickly went to the door and looked out of it, she was gone in the crowd. He shut it and looked back at Pace who still had a fist. "Are you going to open it?" Lamont asked. Pace looked at Lamont with deep concern, "I already did."

Lamont walked over to Pace slowly, "well…what does it say?" Pace bit his lip and let out a deep sigh that turned into a loud exhale. "How in the world does she know?" he asked himself as he looked at his hand again. Lamont watched him and without reading it said, "No." Pace looked at Lamont and shook his head. "how?" Lamont asked as he tried to comprehend how she got the in site on such delicate information. It had never been spoken about on this campus, and yet she still knew about it. "Do we have a rat?" Lamont asked. "Either a rat or she been at the meetings. The same way she got through this building without auth, she has probably been getting in site-" "but how is she sneaking like that everywhere? Who does she know, how would she know who to follow? That something was "up." Lamont interrupted. "We got to get her, Mont" Pace said as he wiped off the writing with some hand sanitizer. "What do you mean "get her?" We can't kidnap her and store her away." "I didn’t mean that dummy, we need to meet with her. If she can get to places without auth, imagine what else she can do. We can't just ignore her." Lamont pondered for a moment and couldn’t help but agree. "How are we gone get her?" he asked taking a seat. "I'm going to have to go get her. We can't just have her coming here, then boss will find out she knows something." "Find out? we're not telling him she knows something?" "No! Do you know what he would do to us?" "Do you know what he would do to us if we hid it from him?" "Were not hiding her from anybody, we have to make sure she knows what she knows. That’s probably exactly what she wants." The room became quiet with thought. "I knew she was going to be trouble." Lamont stated. "Why do you say that?" Pace asked with a small grin.

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