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3
I glancedover my shoulder before I pulled the chip out of my pocket. I gave it a closer look. To my untrained eye, it looked like nothing special. Slek would probably tell me the specifications down to the last decimal point, but it would be meaningless to me.
I placed the chip under a small scanner. Designed to look more closely at head wounds, broken fingers and antennas, using it hopefully wouldn't draw too much attention.
I peered at the screen and exhaled softly. As far as the scanner could tell, it was bot-free. Hopefully it wasn't infested with something worse.
"I wondered what he slipped you," Brinley said over my shoulder.
I jumped. I hadn't even seen her approach. Lucky I hadn't gone into spying as a profession. I would suck at it.
"Yeah, it's J'avet," I said. "He wouldn't slip me anything good."
She stifled a laugh with her hand. "We should probably take that to the captain."
I ran a hand over my crazy curls. The ones on my head. "I suppose we should. I just…" I glanced back toward J'avet. "He wanted me to have it for a reason. He could have given it to security."
Brinley looked apologetic before she said, "Or you were the closest person."
I lowered my hand to my lap. "That's possible too," I agreed. "I might be reading too much into this. It is J'avet after all. Given a choice, he'd give it to anyone but me." I said the words, but I didn't believe them. He had staggered toward me. He looked at me, albeit only a fraction of a glance. I was sure he meant it for me.
"We could put it into a computer and find out," I said. "One not connected to the rest of them."
"Right. It might have a nasty virus J'avet didn't know about." Brinley looked thoughtful. "Just a wild guess there isn't one like that here."
"I wouldn't think so," I agreed. "Slek would know."
"So would the captain," she reminded me.
"When did you become such a goody goody?" I asked teasingly.
She smiled faintly. "Since we all almost died. I'd prefer that not happen again."
The uncertainty in her eyes matched my own. This chip might contain a virus, or the answers as to whether or not the guys were alive.
"I think I can find us a tablet where the chip should fit inside," Brinley said slowly. "I'll get it and bring it back here. I'll try not to be long. Maybe hide that until I get back. If we hand that to the captain, we may never find out what's on it."
I swallowed hard and nodded. "That's true. That would suck." We'd get the whole 'don't worry your pretty little heads about it' spiel and that would be that. We'd be lucky if we ever found out what, if anything, the IF did about what information was on there. That didn't sit right with me at all.
"I need to check on the patients," I said. I pulled the chip out and tucked it back into my pocket. If J'avet would wake, it would save a lot of trouble and speculation, but he was still out.
He looked so peaceful lying there, but part of me wanted to give him a hard poke to wake up.
I resisted the temptation. He needed to rest. Time for answers would come soon. Not soon enough, but soon.
I walked around the infirmary, checking on the handful of patients who were currently resting there. Most had broken bones, or had just given birth. Most inflictions were healed so quickly these days, no one stayed for long.
By the time I'd made a coffee for one patient and changed the sheets for another, Brinley was back, tablet in hand.
We sat down near J'avet and tried to look as though we weren't up to anything suspicious. I was sure we didn't quite pull it off, but no one gave us a glance.
I pulled out the chip and pressed it into the port of the tablet. Brinley turned it on and we waited.
After a moment, the tablet screen showed a file icon for the video.
Brinley and I exchanged glances before she pressed the icon.
My heart jumped when Slek's face came onto the screen.
