Page 36 of Love at First Sighting
“HR complaints,” he says as I open another box on the other side and say, “Expenses?”
Carter keeps thumbing through documents. He finds a particularly interesting one and leans over to me, our shoulders brushing. “Holy shit, they actually fired someone for clogging the toilet too many times? Brutal.”
“And ‘holy shit’ is right.”
The harsh light cuts shadows all over his figure and I follow them from the brim of his hat to the sharpness of his cheekbones to the sly curl of his smile as he looks over at me.His hair is a golden glow, with a lock falling in front of his face, eyes obscured by the hat. I know how this goes in the movies—a single lamp, a detective’s shadow, a femme fatale.
“These go by date,” he mutters. “So we’re somewhere in the seventies—eighties are over there. Okay, we’re looking for the mid–two thousands.”
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 ishorrible. 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’tseethe little alien body. Fuck, I am so fired.”
“Aliens arereal. 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’tactuallyimpact my life if aliens are real or not, but I think it’s cool toknow. 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 withThe 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 nodecentfiling 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 atBrody.
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’sglaringhere. Carter’s dad looksexactlylike 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 wereafterhis death. Settlements. Hang on.” He flips past a few pages to the last case, then back. Then forward again. “What? There’snothingin here about his deathat 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, doesthismake 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 onAngel City Noir, with his slicked-back hair and stern composure. His strictness bleeds through the developed ink and I think of a whole childhood withthisas my only form of family. It feels even more baffling for Carter to be as warm and affable as he is.
