Chapter Text
Keith checked the time.
2:35 AM.
Who the fuck could that be? Maybe it was his roommate?…but why would he come back at 2 in the morning? That wouldn’t make any sense.
The person knocked louder.
Keith groaned, unsticking Lance from his side and shaking him awake.
“Get up.”
“Hm?”
“Lance. Get up.”
“Oh my god. Someone better be dying.”
“Do you ever stop being dramatic?”
“No,” he rubbed his eyes, “it is always toggled on. Like your crankiness.”
“Well, toggle it off and get up. Someone’s at the door.”
“Huh?”
“This is creepily like the beginning of a horror movie,” said Hunk, arising from the dead.
“No it does not, Hunk.”
“Yes it does and you know it.”
The person knocked a third time.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m comin’.”
“Wait! What if it’s campus security? Maybe they found out that we were the ones that triggered the fire alarm!”
“How would they have found you? You’re in a completely different dorm building,” somewhat reassured Keith. He decided that he was, in fact, kinda bad at reassurance.
“I’m not sure, but I bet it’s your fault!” Lance had an obnoxious finger pointed at him in accusation. It was safe to say that he wasn’t a morning person.
“Say whatever you’ve got to say to make yourself feel better…after getting us stuck in a pair of handcuffs for the entire day!”
“I’ll stick you inside a pair of handcuffs!”
“You already did—that’s why we’re in this situation!” They were positioned almost nose to nose.
“Guys. Knock it off and answer the door,” said the voice of reason, “even if it might be someone ready to take me to prison.”
They walked to the door and were met with a shorter person with wild hair and dirty glasses. It was Pidge, who looked dead tired, but alert. Almost too alert…like a wild animal in the middle of a hunt. It was alarming, to say the least.
“Pidge?” asked Lance, probably to confirm who the person standing in the doorway at the ass crack of the morning was.
She stormed in, sitting herself at Keith’s desk, easily making herself at home
“Pidge? What are you doing here?” asked an equally confused Hunk. He rubbed his eyes for the third time in a row. Keith was convinced he might fall back asleep sitting up.
“How did you know where we were?” asked Lance.
“It’s easy to find you when you always have your phones.”
“Pidge—you hacked our phones?”
“That’s fucking creepy!”
“Not to mention an invasion of privacy!” He sounded almost scandalized.
“Guys—we shared our locations with each other at the beginning of the year.” She seemed unimpressed at her friends’ bad memory.
“You guys really forgot?”
“…no.”
“Convincing.”
She turned her focus back to her computer; the blue light reflecting off of her smudged glasses. They all watched as she opened up a new tab and punched in some random script into the bar. She typed a bit before she actually began explaining what was happening with the numbers on the screen.
“I’m apart of this discord group that listens to different radio frequencies.”
As if that explained why her presence made sense.
"How does someone even find a server that has that?” asked Lance under his breath.
Keith shrugged. He didn’t know.
“This account—I just call her Adrianna—found a weird signal the other night, and it led to me finding this weird code. I plugged it in and it took me to this other radio frequency that came from an unknown source. Here. Listen.” She cleaned her glasses with her t-shirt as the sound played aloud.
It just sounded like radio static.
“Do you guys hear the repeating pattern?”
No.
She then tapped her finger against the desktop to emulate it.
Oh shit.
There really was a pattern.
“It’s like some weird, distant alien radio chatter—”
“—there are aliens!?” said Lance.
“No—alien, as in, foreign. C’mon, you know aliens don’t exist,” said Hunk.
Keith felt himself make a face.
“Wait, do you believe in aliens, Keith?”
“I mean, I wouldn’t write them off so easily…”
“Respect,” said Pidge. She gave him a nudge with her elbow before continuing her spiel.
“Anyway—I contacted my professor about it, but he just knocked it aside. He said it was just ‘space chatter’ and nothing to be concerned about…which seemed weird coming from him. The guy is…eccentric…so. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just reading into things too much…”
“Let me see the data.”
She handed him the computer and a piece of paper with a bunch of numbers written all over it.
“No, I think you’re doing the perfect amount of reading into things. Look here—” Hunk pointed to the screen, “—can I exit this screen real quick? I wanna plug these numbers in.”
“Sure, go ahead.”
The screen showed some weird movement that soon morphed into a graph of some sort. Keith kind of recognized it from the more advanced physics courses, but couldn’t put his finger on the name.
“No way! That looks a lot like a Fraunhofer line!” said Pidge.
“A frown…who?” asked Lance.
“It’s the number describing the emission spectrum of an element…in a sense. Only… this element doesn’t exist on Earth naturally,” explained Hunk.
“This is so trippy. Look. It matches perfectly to this other set of plot points and the radio wave emissions from…this!”
“What is that?”
“It’s this, uh, GoLion transmission that my friend Adrianna uncovered a while back. I didn’t think that it would be relevant, but I guess it is.”
Now that got Keith to laugh, because…GoLion. That’s from a tv show. An anime, actually. Someone has to be messing with Pidge. He was startled at the shared laughter coming from his left.
“…like the tv show?” asked Lance. Another laugh.
Pidge shrugged, “never heard of it.” Of course she didn’t know a show from that long ago. She was like, twelve.
“It’s from the 80s,” explained Keith.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Stop looking at me like I’m twelve years old.”
Keith looked away as she continued speaking.
“I’m sorry I’ve never heard of some lame anime about…” she typed on her keyboard until she landed on a FanWiki site, “a mighty sentient robot GoLion.”
There was a pause as she kept reading.
“…actually…this seems kinda cool. Maybe we should binge this.”
Keith could sit still for that.
“Anyway—” said Hunk, “I-i think I can build a machine to look for it, like a GoLion geiger counter of some sorts.”
“Hunk! You genius!”
“Well—I said ‘I think’. It’s not a guarantee.”
“Still, it’s better than anything I’ve got,” said Lance.
“Same here,” said the smaller one.
Keith shrugged again.
As much as Keith wanted to be interested in what this meant—he was really fucking tired. He felt himself nodding off where he sat on his bed. So was Lance.
“I’m going to sleep,” announced Lance.
“Me too,” said Keith, “here’s my key card so you can get back in if you leave.”
“Thanks.”
They both KO’d quickly after that. Keith stirred awake after a couple of hours to find that the sun still hadn’t risen. Lance scrolled on his computer next to him.
“Good morning."
“Mornin’. You been up long?”
“Not really. I was woken up by the door when they came back.”
Keith looked at the pair tinkering away, using both his and James’ desks as workbenches.
“Have they been at it the whole time?”
“Kind of. I made them take a break when I woke up, but then they jumped right back into it.”
“I see…”
“Yeah. Wanna watch something?”
“Sure. You pick, though.”
It was too early to make decisions.
He picked some action movie with a lot of explosions and one-liners. They almost watched the whole thing while Hunk and Pidge worked on their mechanism. The tinkers finally took a break though, and Lance then put on the first episode of Beast King GoLion for all of them to watch.
“Shorty kinda looks like Pidge, no?” asked Lance, real quiet. Almost a whisper to make sure it was out of earshot of the person in question.
Keith watched the episode. He hadn’t seen the show in a long time, so he took a closer look at the character in question. Lance kinda had a point. The glasses, the small-ness of them both…
“Yeah, she does.”
“It’s the glasses, right?”
“I think so.”
They shared a sneaky smile.
They weren’t quiet enough though…because she now looked at them skeptically…as if she could sense that her name was mentioned.
“McClain, what are you saying about me?”
“Nothing! Nothing!”
He shot Keith another smile.
“I’m going to pretend I believe you.”
“Sick.”
They watched the first 3-ish episodes. Lance dozed off for 2 of them and his head weighed heavy on his shoulder the whole time. It was a little uncomfortable, but they eventually settled in a somewhat cozy position between the two of them before both of them knocked out.
They were woken up by a jolt on the bed. It was Pidge, who had her torso and head resting on the comfort of the bed while the rest of her dangled off the side. Her glasses were discarded on the desk and had her eyes closed. She mumbled something under her breath.
“You okay?” asked Keith.
“Can I lie?”
“You’re not obligated to tell the truth.”
“Shitty.”
“You should probably take a nap,” suggested Lance, stifling a yawn.
“I can’t. Hunk is almost done and I finally figured out what kind of graph these numbers best fit into. Initially, I thought it was the basic kind of graph that the Fraunhofer lines are normally plotted on…but it turns out that the code was actually switched and shifted based on the day we received the message!”
Keith just nodded along.
“And…it’s pretty fascinating because the wavelength looks like this when plotted!”
She showed the plot points to the pair.
Keith couldn’t hold back a laugh. The sleep deprivation was definitely catching up to him because for a split second, the lines looked like the silhouette of this arcade place his family went to this past summer.
“Wait, why are you laughing? Did you see an error in the numbers?”
“No. It’s just—it looked familiar for a second.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like…it looked like this place my parents and I went to last summer. It looks like the skyline a bit. Right there is the point of the castle, and then the mountains in the back and everythin’…”
“Show me.”
He scrolled through his camera roll to find the picture that was taken on their ‘road trip’ to drop Keith off at the dorms this past summer. They usually took a different route getting here, so this place had caught their eye on their way over.
After some scrolling, he finally landed on the specific photo he had been looking for. It had his parents posing in front of a knight statue with the castle and mountains in the background. They even waited in line to get that specific shot…
Pidge examined the photo and then pulled out her phone to search for a picture of the place from an angle further away.
“Holy shit.”
Hunk looked over at the image on the laptop and then back to the plotted points on the graph.
“No way.”
“What? What are you guys freaking out about?” asked Lance— He was asking the real questions.
“Look,” they looked, “the skyline and the plots match up almost perfectly…”
“Okay, I’ll admit…the way this all matches up is a little freaky…,” said Lance.
“Me too. But this obviously means something. We have to go there.”
“To the arcade?” asked Hunk.
“Right now?” asked Keith.
“Yes, right now. We have to go!”
“Hell yeah!”
“Let’s go!”
They all looked at Keith, now, buzzing in their seats waiting for an answer.
Aside, Lance said, “we don’t have to go if you don’t want.”
And that was cool of him. But it must have been the smoke inhalation, the lack of sleep, the pain meds…or a combination of all three that messed with his better judgement.
He didn’t even hesitate to respond.
“Sure, we can go.”
“Wait, really?”
“I said yes, right?”
Was he going to regret this? Probably.
“Yes! You did say yes! No takesies backsies!” The brunette said this with the biggest smile on his face.
Who the fucks says that?
The smile on the other’s face seemed to have counteracted the annoyance that was supposed to be present. It was almost endearing. He shoved the other’s face away to hide him from seeing the stupid look that was probably on his face.
“J-just—never say that again!’
Smooth.
“Sorry. Can’t promise that!”
He laughed at that, it sounding endearing.
Everything seemed to be endearing to him right now…
…it was definitely due to the lack of sleep.
—
Once they compiled themselves into Pidge’s beat up ‘09 Toyota Prius (with one too many dents for Keith’s comfort), they were off on their adventure! The radio was on and played some popular 90s grunge songs. They all bobbed their heads as they listened, comfortable despite the lack of conversation.
The radio was lowered by Pidge. She informed them that she would need to stop for gas soon.
“Gas and a car wash,” said Lance.
“Why a car wash?”
“Everyone knows that you get better gas milage if you wash your car.”
How does that work?
“You know…less wind resistance or something. I don’t know!” He shrugged.
This guy was being serious.
“You’re being serious,” said Keith.
“Of course I am. It’s like when I wear my speedo and shave my legs for swim meets. It lessens water resistance and makes me fly.” He did this weird hand motion to show how fast he goes.
“Oh-kay.”
“Oh, P, you’re gonna get off here. Keep right to turn left. Gas station will be on the left,” instructed Hunk.
“Huh?”
“I…don’t know. It’s what the robot said. Just stay in the middle lane.”
“Roger that.”
She pulled into the gas station. She filled up the tank while Hunk raced inside to get some snacks. Lance took this as an opportunity to stretch out his long limbs, dragging Keith along for some fresh air. He then wanted to drag him into the liquor store, but Pidge told him no. She said that he would just end up buying a bunch of dumb shit he didn’t need. Which…was fair, but Keith wanted to get something to drink and Lance probably had to pee in the next 10 minutes anyway…so really, it was probably best to go in.
“Fine. But watch him.”
“It’s hard not to,” replied Keith, shaking the cuffs between them.
“…right.”
“Pidgey Widgey, do you want anything?”
“No thanks.”
“Are you suuuure you don’t want anything?”
“Well, since you’re so persistent—sure. I’ll take a coke.”
This early in the morning???
“What kind?” asked Keith.
“Of coke…? The red kind?”
Keith blinked. Right. “You want anythin’ else?”
“No thanks. Hunk’s grabbing me food.”
Lance saluted before they walked away.
They made it back before Hunk, who was still perusing the aisles when they finished paying for their drinks. He came back (like the hero he was) with chips, waters, and actual food with substance.
Some sandwiches and fruit.
Trail mix.
Beef jerky.
The good shit.
This guy wasn’t messin’ around.
“Alright,” Pidge slapped the top of the car twice before throwin’ herself inside, “everyone back in. We’re burning daylight.”
“P, there isn’t any daylight to burn. The sun isnt even completely up yet,” said Hunk.
“This should be illegal,” said Lance in a sleepy daze, draping himself dramatically against the middle console, “it’s Saturday. A designated sleep-in day.”
“Well that’s tough for you,” said Pidge.
Lance pouted, and Keith finally gained enough courage to unwrap one of the sandwiches that Hunk grabbed. Well, attempt to unwrap. His backseat companion had to help with the unwrapping process…and then was threatened to not laugh while he tried to eat his portion. It was hard to stop it from falling apart given that his right wrist was out of commission.
“Stop staring at me. I know I’m eatin’ weird.”
“No, no. You’re actually doing a pretty good job.”
“Shut up.”
He laughed, and then suddenly started choking. Karma or whatever.
“Oh god. Trachea doesn't like lettuce.”
“Never would’a thought,” said Keith, handing him some water.
“Thanks.”
“Yeah.”
“You grab anything other than water?”
“No.”
“Huh. I guess you are hydrated…”
“It’s 8 in the morning. I’m not gonna drink soda.”
“What about coffee. You a coffee guy?”
“Yeah, in the sense that it wakes me up.”
“Same here.”
A pause.
“Y’know, I’ve been thinking about your little concoction,” said Lance.
“What ‘little concoction’?”
“Y’know…the Fritos and like, pickles or whatever.”
“Oh,” Keith shrugged, “what about it?”
“I want to try it.”
“Well, I didn’t grab anything besides the drinks. We’ve only got what Hunk grabbed, which is…trail mix and some jerky.”
“Awe man. Pidge, we’ve gotta go back and get some Fritos!”
“We are not turning around for Fritos,” said Pidge. She sounded almost offended by the chip name.
“Turn around.”
“No.”
“Just turn into that little alleyway and we can pop a quick U-wee.”
“You’re just gonna have to deal.”
“Oh, come on! You can make a quick U-turn at the light.”
“No. Look how skinny the road is! Unless you want me to make a fifteen point turn to go the correct direction, I say we just get some Fritos later.”
“A fifteen point turn!?” said Hunk incredulously.
“Why would it take fifteen points to make the turn?” asked Lance.
“I don’t think I can even imagine a u-turn that would require over 10 points in a turn.”
“Who let you drive?”
“Yeah, where did you get your license from?”
“Leave me alone.”
She cleared her throat, “Keith, what’s our location? How far away are we?”
He wiped his hands on his jeans and took a look at the GPS, “it’s still down the road a piece.”
“About 15 miles,” supplied Lance, looking at the same GPS.
“That’s a lotta pieces,” said Hunk.
“With the speed we’re goin’, we’re about 30 minutes away.”
“That’s perfect! Just enough time to play some car games!”
Keith internally groaned—the driver externally groaned.
“What game?” asked Hunk.
“I-spy?”
“Lance, we’re in the desert. The only thing we can see besides dirt are various cacti.”
Blatantly ignoring her, Lance proceeded to start the game, “I spy with my little eye…something green.”
“I wonder what it could be.”
“A cactus?” asked Hunk.
“Yeah.”
There was a silence after that.
“How about we play the alphabet game?” suggested Hunk.
“There aren’t any billboards or signs.”
“Fair.” Then Lance’s eyes popped open, larger than they had been in a while, “my teammates and I once played a game where we all took a laxative and whoever shit themselves first, lost. We can play that!”
“What the fuck is wrong with you.” It was a statement. Not a question. Like she wanted him to list everything that was wrong with him.
"No, no, it’s fun! Trust me!”
“Yeah, sounds like a blast.”
“A blast,” repeated Lance.
“—it doesn’t sound enjoyable, how about that?”
“We also don’t have any laxatives,” supplied Hunk, as if that was the reason they wouldn’t play the game.
“We can get creative…”
“Absolutely not. Not in my car.”
“You guys are lame. How about we play the ‘who-can-annoy-Pidge-first’ game?”
There was an immediate smack. How she managed to reach Lance from the driver’s seat was beyond him.
“You win.”
“I didn’t even do anything yet.”
“I heard you breathing.”
“That’s so fucked up,” said the victim, rubbing his shoulder in pain.
She retrained her eyes onto the road.
“You are all so mean to me, which is so crazy because I am so caring and kind…” Lance sighed dramatically, throwing an unnecessary amount of weight onto his handcuffed companion.
“You’re definitely something else…” said Pidge.
That’s when he turned to look at Keith, “that’s right! I’m a secret third thing…” and winked.
“Yeah, undesirable,” stated Pidge.
Keith couldn’t help but laugh, his first (somewhat) contribution to the group in a while.
“Honestly, go fuck yourselves. Every single one of you.” Lance crossed one arm in defeat, opting to steal some of the trail mix Keith was eating and immediately choke.
“Awe fuck,” more coughing, “trachea also doesn’t like trail mix.” He rolled down the window and let all the good air out in the process.
“Noted,” said Keith, handing him his water.
“Lance, this is what you sound like.” Hunk played an audio of a seal.
Lance coughed again, sounding like the seal…which made him laugh again…which made him cough some more. A torturous cycle for the cougher.
“I like videos where people trip down stairs,” said Pidge.
Lance raised an eyebrow at that.
“So you thought it was funny when Keith and I fell?”
“Once I knew you guys were okay,” she looked at Keith, “well, once I knew you guys were mostly okay—then I thought it was funny.”
“That’s fucked, bro,” said Lance.
“It’s like when you watch little kids eat shit on pavement. It’s inherently funny for some reason.”
“Personally, I love watching kids get hurt,” said Lance., “I think it’s because of their proportions. Their heads always go down the fastest.”
“No for real! It’s like their heads are ten times heavier than the rest of ‘em!” said Hunk. He then mumbled something under his breath, too quiet for them to hear from the back seat.
“Bro,” said Pidge, stifling a laugh.
“Wait, what did you say?”
“…Old people falling into water is my favorite.”
That made everyone burst into laughter.
“Hunk, buddy. What the fuck?”
“What? It’s funny! It’s like they fall in slow-motion! And then there’s usually a splash.”
“I’m telling my grandma you said that.”
“No!”
“Too late.”
As they got closer to their destination, the sky darkened and the buildings surrounding it became weirder and weirder. It was like all of the shop names were pulled from a name randomizer.
“TNT and Lawn Equipment…?” read Lance.
“That’s gotta be a front for something else,” said Hunk.
“Oh yeah, for sure.”
Lance leaned in to watch the newly approaching building shaped like a medieval castle. There were tall flags on every corner and two knights standing tall on stone pillars. Cypress trees lined the sides and the parking lot was devoid of cars.
“Uh…guys…anyone else getting a bad feeling about this?” Hunk’s question was answered when everyone hopped out of the car and walked toward the entrance…which was locked off.
Pidge examined the lock…and then began picking at it.
“Wait, Pidge,” said Hunk, "what if someone is luring us here to kill us?”
Keith had to admit, it was the perfect set up: lure people to an abandoned arcade in the early morning and kill ‘em when they enter. Easy. They pretty much would be doin’ all the work for them.
“Okay, fine. What do you want to do then?”
“I don’t know…just…let’s find a way to be safe about this whole thing.”
Pidge groaned, “It’s locked. Which means no one has entered. We’re fine.” She fiddled with the metal lock. Hunk swatted away her hands and looked to both Lance and Keith for some help.
“How about we scope the place first,” suggested Lance.
That was a good idea. That way, they could see if there were any other ways in and out of the place.
“If we don’t see anything suspicious, then you can pick the lock. Sound good?”
“Fine,” said Pidge.
The group scoped the place. Lance and Keith took left; which led them to the back of the building full of mini golf courses and an oddly placed waterslide. They saw two main exits out the back, but they were locked from the inside. They reported their findings once they regrouped.
Hunk and Pidge found two more exits on the opposite side. One of them was locked, while the other wasn’t, but had a huge machine blocking it from opening. It was something to keep an eye out for…but overall, they seemed to be in the clear. Pidge got the ‘go’ to enter.
Pidge fidgeted with the lock enough to be able to break it with one clean hit with a rock. For being so tall, the doors opened quite easily and welcomed them into the run down arcade. They passed some stairs on both sides that (Keith knew) led upstairs to the laser tag arena. As they continued to walk forward, there was a pizza parlor and tables to their left, and a miniature bowling alley on their right. It was one of those weird games where you bowl with a skii-ball and the pins are attached to wires.
Fliers were scattered along the floor; some of them for laser tag, others were for jousting tournaments. Pidge picked one up that had some writing on it. It looked like nonsense.
Hunk grabbed some papers from the floor, “This place is a dump.” He then dusted off his hands.
“…It was just up and runnin’ a few months ago…” said Keith in disbelief. It was flourishing and packed with people not even 5 months ago…
As they continued to walk straight, it opened up to the rest of the games. The deeper they walked in, the more broken-down arcade games appeared. Most of them were neatly packed into the far, right-most area of the backroom. Keith noted that that was the exit Hunk and Pidge had found.
Some lights still blinked with color; however, a majority didn’t. It was kinda creepy and sent a shiver down Keith’s spine. It’s like the ghosts of past players haunted the place…
Pidge and Hunk turned on the geiger counter thingy to find frequencies and whatnot and walked ahead. They seemed determined to find where the beeping would lead them. That left Keith and Lance to stay behind, not really sure of what they should be doing.
Lance picked up a flier.
“Whaaaat. Laser tag?”
“Yeah, there’s an arena upstairs.”
“I love laser tag. Did you play when you visited?”
“My dad did. He got absolutely obliterated by my mom.”
“But did you play?”
“Well, yes.”
“Did you beat your mom?”
“…I’m more of a close-combat type of guy.”
“Ahh, so you aren’t very good.”
“I’m terrible,” he found himself laughing, “my stats were so bad. Even the worker felt bad for me.”
Lance laughed along with him. “We’ll have to play sometime. All four of us.”
“Sure. Who knows…maybe I’m husslin’ ya.”
“Yeah right.”
That’s when something caught Keith’s eye…a piece of paper that looked a little different from the usual ones littered around.
“Wait—look. This might be a clue.”
“How do you know?”
“It has the school logo on it.”
Lance dropped to the ground and filed through the rest of the papers. He picked up four others that looked similar. Matching school logo and all.
“Pidge. Come here.”
“Find something?” asked both Pidge and Hunk.
“Yeah. Papers,” explained Lance, handing them over to the pair. They read them over, rotating them in different directions and flipping them over, over and over again.
“Guys, look!” Hunk rotated the paper for the 15th time, “it looks like they’re meant to be kept together.” He held them together and showed how the design on one of them continued onto another like a puzzle.
“A clue?” asked Lance.
Pidge examined the paper, “Yeah…but for what?” She asked that more to herself more than anything, “…and who made them?” She held up the geiger counter and aimed it at the paper. It didn’t beep. She shrugged and continued walking toward the back of the building. The machine beeped. Hunk followed.
The conjoined pair was, once again, left behind. Keith motioned for them to walk, but Lance had other plans. He motioned toward a room with multiple first-person shooter games.
“Let’s go see if any are salvageable!”
He was then physically pulled by the other in excitement.
“My sister Vero and I play these kinds of games all the time.”
“Is that your twin?”
“Huh?”
“Is Vero your twin sister?”
“Oh, uh, no. She’s my older sister. Rachel is my womb-mate.”
Noted.
Keith looked around some more. His eyes landed on a flight simulator. Keith smiled at it, remembering the way his dad tried so hard to beat his mom’s score. Lance must have noticed his staring and directed them toward it.
“You like this game?” asked Lance, plopping himself into the plastic pilot seat. Keith leaned against the side of the chair and held out his arm so he could toggle the joystick every-which-way. He pressed every button to try and wake the machine from its permanent slumber.
“This was my mom’s favorite,” said Keith.
“Was it also your favorite game?”
He nodded, “this, or air hockey.”
“I love air hockey!” He looked up at him from where he sat; the dull, flickering neon lights reflecting off of his light eyes. He gave Keith a smile.
Pretty.
Keith looked away, scanning the room for something else to lay his eyes on…and what he found was interesting. His attention was drawn to a blinking light that looked out of place on one of the machines.
He watched as it went from black to bright green. He counted the seconds in-between each flicker…it seemed too planned…too consistently inconsistent to be random…
“This is gonna sound real stupid, but do you know morse?” asked Keith, staring at the light.
“I did at one point. Pidge probably knows it though, why?”
“Look at that green dot. Why is it the only button still blinking? The rest of the machine is pretty much dead.”
Lance examined it and called for both Pidge and Hunk. He didn’t get an immediate response, so he took matters into his own hands. He opened up his notes app and began staring intently at the blinking light. He scribbled dashes and dots into the app until he seemed content enough with what he got. He then opened a translator on his phone.
“So…the blinking is using morse.”
Oh shit.
“I’ve got…‘N-D-E-R-M-A-C-H-N-E’ so far, but that doesn’t make any sense…” He mumbled more nonsense to himself about how he probably missed letters…or put them together incorrectly or somethin’.
“Maybe it’s…under machine?” suggested Keith.
“Let’s check.”
They ducked underneath and found a small box secured against the underside. From what Keith could see, the box was wrapped in some sort of pad with a touch-screen displaying weird numbers.
Lance poked and prodded at it, it not releasing for the life of him.
“Hm. Nope…maybe….” he tapped frantically at it some more, “I don’t know what I’m doing here. It’s all coded gibberish.”
“Let me see.” Keith brought his hand up to it to give it a try. As if by magic, it unclicked and released the box.
“Woah! How’d you do that?”
Keith shrugged, “I just put my hand on it.”
Pidge and Hunk made it back to them just in time. Lance removed the lid and held out the item for all four of them to see. It was a computer USB flash drive of some sorts…
“A flash?”
Lance handed it to Pidge, who held it securely in her hand. Hunk waved the geiger counter at it. It didn’t make a single beep.
“…I think it’s broken,” said Hunk with his head hanging low.
Lance pat him on the back.
“Let me grab my computer,” said Pidge. They both went to grab their equipment from their backpacks in the other room. As the minutes drew on, the more concerned Keith got. Hunk and Pidge got really quiet. Their chatter ceased completely.
He didn’t hear anything at all.
Anything except the faint sound of chains being rustled…the clanking of metal chains that didn’t belong to the ones that hung between the two college boys.
Something wasn’t right…
…and then the front entrance opened.
The atmosphere turned static. Keith could feel his heartbeat in his fingertips.
He heard a buzz from Lance’s phone. He pulled it out and quickly unlocked it.
“Get down!” was all he heard before he was tugged to the floor, his right arm hitting the game chair and sending a sharp pain down his already injured wrist.
“Fuck, I'm so sorry.”
He waved him off, opting to just read the text that was flashed to him. It was a good distraction from the pain.
Pidgey: someone is here. we think it’s a cop. stay down.
Pidgey: he has a flashlight.
Keith checked his phone and opened it to an identical text.
It was a group chat.
“How did she get my number?”
“She’s Pidge.”
Okay, yeah, sure. They heard movement from the room next to them.
They ducked further down.
“Fuck, Keith, what do we do?” whisper-shouted Lance.
“Hush,” this guy must’a learned to whisper in a sawmill. His first thought was to find a place to hide. His second thought was to find exactly where Pidge and Hunk were hiding. He had no idea, since the two of them had wandered off, which wasn’t the smartest thing on their part. They should have stuck together.
Keith peeked past the machine they were behind, seeing a reflection of light coming from a distance away in the room to their right. He trailed the light to find Pidge and Hunk crouched inside a Photo Booth. Pidge made some hand gestures he couldn’t make out.
What’s she saying?
“It’s Pidge.”
“What’s she saying?”
“Hell if I know—you interpret.”
Lance looked over to where he pointed and was somehow able to understand her hand signals. He nodded to her before explaining the plan.
“They’re going to try and come over here. The cop-guy is in the main lobby area near the bowling alley thingy. There’s a side exit in the room to our right. We’re going to try and get out from there.”
How on earth did he get that from what she was gesturing??
The cop exited the general vicinity, which allowed Hunk and Pidge to regroup with the other two. Now that they were back together, they were now able to devise a plan to get the hell outta there.
“You guys ready?”
All three men nodded.
She then looked at Keith and Lance, “watch our 6 o’clock to see if he comes our way,” said Pidge.
“Got it,” said Keith. He scanned the room as they crawled away. All the while, he tried to steady his frantic breathing and settle his shaky hands against his jeans. He could feel the way his hands shook at his sides, prayin’ that Lance couldn’t feel it too.
Pidge and Hunk were covered and made it successfully across the room, but that was when the cop turned toward Keith and Lance’s general direction. He was headed toward the room they now solely occupied until there was a huge crash from the main entrance. The cop-guy swiftly changed directions and headed to find out where the sound came from.
Keith looked to Hunk. He motioned to Pidge, who had a purple golfball in her hand. Keith could only assume that she threw another one into the other room as a distraction…the pair then quickly attempted to unlock the door as quietly as possible…
Keith knew that they would be fine, so he threw his attention toward his and Lance’s own situation. They needed to leave the room and find a new place to be.
“Lance, we have to move. Now.” That was when he finally turned to look at the other…and he looked worse for wear.
“Hey,” he said lightly, crouching to match his level, “everythin’ okay?”
“I’m doing great,” said Lance.
“…I can see that.”
He pouted.
Keith. Be better at reassuring people for god’s sake!
Keith continued, “we just have to get to a new room. Then we can strategize. Everythin’s gonna be fine.”
He let out a breath, “okay. Yeah. You’re right.”
“And hey, what’s the worst that could happen?” Keith asked as a joke, really, but Lance then took this time to really contemplate his answer.
“I could quite literally shit my pants.”
Keith blinked, not expecting him to say that.
“…well. I can’t guarantee that we’ll be able to overlook that, but—I meant in terms of what is currently happening. What’s the worst that could happen?”
“Oh, yeah, right. Okay. Um… We could go to jail—”
“—well, no time to think about that!”
He then pulled him along. They crouch-walked behind different games and followed the curve of the wall. Keith made sure to keep his wrapped arm carefully against the chain between the handcuffs to muffle the clanking noise it usually made.
They made it to the very back room of the arcade—where it slowly began transitioning into a golf-land type of aesthetic. They walked until they reached a door that led to a booth with a huge window. It was where the employees handled transactions and distributed the mini-golf clubs and balls.
All of the equipment had been removed though; it was now bare with only a dusty mural to fill the room. Keith and Lance crouched low and shut the door.
As the door closed, Lance got a look at the cop—mumbling something about him seeming familiar.
“Pardon?” asked Keith.
“I think I’ve seen that guy before,” said Lance, more confident.
“The cop?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you sure?”
“Almost positive.”
“Almost positive?”
“Yeah.”
“Where?”
The flashlight shined against the door behind them. The pair shifted away from the floor and into the shadows. They needed to move again, fast. But where could they go? He scanned the room and found nothin’.
“What now?” asked Lance.
“I say we move.”
“Wait, really?”
“Yeah, we don’t know where Pidge and Hunk ended up…I have a feeling that they’re fine…but I know that we can’t just wait here like sittin’ ducks.”
He waited a beat in silence.
“Do ya hear anything from the other room?” asked Keith.
“Not really.”
“Okay, let’s go—”
“Woah, woah, woah, woah, cool your jets, Keith!” He was pushed back to the ground, “we can’t just barge out of here without a plan like some psychos.”
…okay, that made a lot of sense. For all they knew, the cop could be anywhere.
“You got a better idea?”
“I say we just wait it out for now.”
“You know we can’t do that,” said Keith.
“Well, yeah—but it’s better than being caught!”
“We’re not gonna get caught!” He felt himself getting irritated.
“You don’t know that!”
“God, if you’re scared, just say so!”
“I’m not scared.” Lance looked at him annoyed. His words must have struck a nerve or somethin’.
“Wash off your war paint. We just need to get outta here as quick as possible. We don’t have to do anythin’ you don’t want.”
Lance turned away the best he could in their situation, a crease in his brow. He sighed again.
…and like, Keith understood why he was upset. Keith found himself frustrated, too. He was mad because, first of all, he was scared outta his mind right now and they were failing to make a joint decision. The time crunch, the sleep deprivation, the lack of food, the urgency, the handcuffs, the pain pulsating through his wrist… all of these things were starting to wear on him, so he understood why Lance was upset—he just didn’t know why he was upset with him. Keith didn’t do anything wrong (that he could think of…).
“Are you upset?”
“No.”
“Is it because I implied you’re scared?”
“No.”
“Then why—”
“Nothing. Let’s just get out of here like you said.”
“Well it’s obviously not nothin’. And I don’t want to go unless you want to, too.”
“Leave it alone. Everything’s fine.”
“No, seriously. Lance, what’s wrong? I’m frustrated too, but we’ve gotta—”
“Just…shut up.”
“Excuse me?” asked Keith…not as a question…but more of a ‘who-the-hell-are-you-talkin-to’ kinda way.
“This is going to sound so stupid…” mumbled the other, rubbing at his face.
“I’m…not followin’.”
“I’m just—I’m upset because you’re so goddamn perfect!” said Lance.
Huh???
“Excuse me?”—as in, ‘where-the-fuck-did-you-get-that-idea-from’ kind of way.
“You’re perfect! You’re the perfect student. Your brother is literally the coolest professor on campus. You just so-happened to know where this arcade was…like, how random could that have been? And you saw that the button was in morse…and you’re smart and so annoyingly considerate.”
“I wouldn’t say that—”
“You literally went out of your way to let me be with my friends, even after I pretty much broke your wrist…and—and you have not once been upset with me. Yeah, you’ve been cranky, but I can tell you’re not really upset. And even now! You’re still perfect. You don’t even look scared! You’ve been dragging me around the whole time, even though this whole thing is my fault!”
“Lance…”
“and it’s just—usually I stand out, but next to you, it’s like I’m useless…”
“We both know that’s a load of bullshit.” Keith held out his hands for the other to take, “Do you feel how badly I’m shaking right now? I’m not exactly calm, cool, and collected at the moment.” He then grabbed Lance’s hand and placed it over his heart, “and do you feel how fast my heart is racing?”
“…you naturally have an increased heart rate…”
He felt himself smile, “I do not. Only when you’re around, maybe…but no. This is fast, even for me.”
Lance laughed to himself; Keith took this as the best way to continue what he was saying.
“And yeah, I haven’t been upset this whole time because I’m, quite frankly, having fun. I don’t think I’ve hung out with people not related to an assignment since my first year.”
“Wait, really?”
“Yeah…I’m not the most…social butterfly.”
“You’re kidding.”
“It’s shocking, I know.”
Lance smiled at him.
“…and don’t cut yourself short. You’re very patient, and dependable, and were able to patch me up after I ate shit in the stairwell. You also cracked the morse code…and you're actually kind of cool when you’re not thinking too hard about it.”
“That almost sounded like a compliment…”
“It was a compliment. Take it or leave it. It’ll be a while before the next one.”
There was a pause.
“Thank you, Keith.” All of a sudden he felt sheepish; heat rushing straight to his face.
“It’s no big deal…and thanks, too.”
“Of course—and I’m sorry,” said Lance.
“For what?”
“I’m sorry for…everything, really. I’m sorry that I handcuffed us together. I’m sorry I blew up on you and was mean and jealous…I just assumed so much about you, and I really didn’t know anything at all—I mean, I still don’t know anything about you.”
Well yeah, we’ve known each other for a little under 24 hours—Is what he wanted to say, but he chose to keep quiet just this once.
“I forgive you,” said Keith, because he did, “I haven’t been…the nicest either, so. I’m sorry, too.”
“It’s cool. I’m also sorry about your wrist.”
“It’s okay, really.”
“And I’m sorry that we’re now hiding from the cops in a sketchy run down arcade because Pidge found some weird radio waves.”
“Dude, really. You don’t have to keep apologizing—”
“—and I’m also sorry for saying that your brother was hot yesterday.”
“Lance. Say you’re sorry one more time and I’ll get us both arrested.”
He mumbled something to himself…something that sounded a little too much like an apology, but he let it slide this time.
Lance then let out a big sigh—releasing it through every limb and relaxing against the wall.
“We good?”
“Yeah, we’re good. We should get goin’, though” said Keith. “Y’have any ideas?”
Their phones buzzed.
Pidgey: out. cop is near the back room.
Pidgey: from the looks of it, cop is now circling back to the main entrance.
Lance: got it
Keith remembered where that was in relation to where they were positioned. So did lance.
“I do,” said Lance. “Remember that side exit we saw when we scoped the place?”
“Yeah.”
“We’ll just sneak out of this room and use it. If the guy is near the front—we stay away from the front. Easy.”
“…okay, you’re making some good points.”
“I always make good points.”
Even a blind hog can find an acorn once in a while, thought Keith, but he digresses.
“One at a time, Lance.”
He groaned.
“So…you ready?”
“So soon? I thought you wanted to wait for a second?”
Lance flashed him a new text message from Pidge.
Pidgey: make it out in the next 10 minutes and Hunk and I will buy you both lunch.
“That was before we were properly motivated,” said Lance, pocketing his phone.
Keith chuckled to himself, “okay, yeah. Let’s do this.”
They exited the safety of the small room to reenter the eerily quiet arcade and snuck along the wall with minimum effort. They were able to make it through the long stretch of nothin’ without any hiccups; walking in tune with one another to avoid any unwanted attention in their direction. When they successfully made it to the side exit, the door opened nice and easy. The sunlight was the only evidence that the door was even opened.
When they closed the door from the outside, they heard the man shout something before they broke out into a full-fledged sprint toward Pidge’s car.
“Start the car!” yelled Lance.
“Lance! Keith!”
“Pidge! Start the car!” He repeated.
She did as instructed and drove away full speed.
While Keith tried catching his breath, he looked back at the lifeless arcade. He found it odd that there wasn’t a single cop car in sight…
He turned his focus back to the group.
“What do you think is on the flash drive?” asked Lance. He chugged the water that was left on the seat.
“I don’t know. I would have done it by now, but I forgot my charger in Keith’s dorm. I didn't want to risk my computer dying on us.”
“Ooo! Maybe it’s a file that holds a secret map to a secret location!” said Lance.
"Yeah, maybe it’ll lead us to a big treasure or something!” said Hunk.
“What do you think the big treasure will be?”
“I suspect that it’s sporks.”
Lance and Keith looked at Hunk in disbelief.
“Clearly this person is very intelligent, so they probably learned that it’s foolish to have forks and spoons when one tool will efficiently do the job.”
“Hunk, I think you need some sleep.”
“I think Hunk needs some sleep as well,” said Hunk.
“And I need some food. I’m starved,” said Pidge.
“Same.”
“Me too.”
“And, it’s Hunk and Pidge’s treat! Isn’t that wonderful?”
“Nope. You guys made it out in 12 minutes. It doesn’t count.”
“Oh come on, Pidge! That’s so unfair!”
The two of them went back and forth for some time—and Keith found it oddly nice as he rested his head against the car door. Their pseudo argument was soon drowned out by the whispers of sleep.
—
Keith was lightly shaken awake.
“Hey. We’re back. You’ve gotta get up.”
He groaned, the sunlight too bright for his eyes.
“Pidge has snacks.”
That perked him up a bit.
“How long was I out?”
“About an hour. I slept, too.”
“Nice.”
“Also…don’t get mad…but I have to pee.”
He groaned again.
“I can’t control it! And I blame the adrenaline this time.”
“…”
“You should be proud of me, I’ve held it for a while now.”
“You’re a menace…according to yourself.”
“Ha. Ha.”
“I understand the adrenaline part,” said Hunk, “I nearly puked earlier.” Keith thinks that it was said to try and reassure the other…but he wasn’t too sure.
“That’s…not nearly the same thing, but okay.”
Keith laughed, “let’s go.”
They made it back to Keith’s dorm in one piece—a very disheveled and sleep deprived piece, but hey, that’s better than nothin’. Keith unlocked the door and was immediately welcomed by his roommate, who was chillin’ on his bed and taking them all in with wide eyes; probably confused, more than anything.
“Hey…oh my god, Keith. Your wrist! Are you okay?”
Keith waved him off, “G'mornin’ to you, too.”
His roommate just laughed.
“That’s a nice group of friends you’ve got there,” he then eyed the handcuffs, giving Keith a questionable look, “wait, I thought you didn’t need the room for—”
“—shut up.”
“I haven’t even said anything!”
“I know you. Either you don’t be annoying, or leave.”
James held his hands up in surrender, “alright, alright. I’m meeting with Kinkade anyway. I’ll see you later.” Him leaving didn’t stop him from giving Keith a look saying ‘you’re gonna explain this to me later’ .
They all huddled on and around Keith’s bed. Pidge plugged in her computer and then inserted the flash. A screen popped up, indicating that the content needed time to load before displaying.
“Maybe uploading it directly onto your computer might be a bad thing…” said Keith, “couldn’t it have a virus or somethin’?"
“Nah—my computer is immune.”
Keith didn’t know what that meant.
“She’s fully upgraded.”
He still had no idea what she was gettin’ at.
“It has a built in anti-virus. Don’t hurt yourself.”
He felt himself pout. He still didn’t know what that meant, exactly, but sure. What the hell.
The file finished downloading.
A video popped up.
She clicked play.
A middle aged man with a bright orange mustache appeared on the screen. He adjusted the frame until he was satisfied with what it was capturing.
“Hello, brave student…or students!”
“No way. Is that Coran?” asked Hunk.
“Yeah, it is!”
“He’s so young!”
“Who’s Coran?” asked Lance—once again, asking the right questions.
“Our coding professor.”
“If you’re watching this, I can only assume that you cracked the CORANIMANIAC Code! I would like to congratulate you—”
The video proceeded to cut out.
“Uh…”
“What’s wrong with the video?” asked Keith.
“From the looks of it…it’s probably like, 10 years old. It’s probably corroded,” supplied Hunk, who clicked some buttons to try and get it to continue playing. The screen went a little wonky before jumping to the next part.
“—I could go on for days! But for now, I’ve got some explaining to do! This was put together by me…and of course with the help of a few colleagues from the Foreign Language Department, the Physics Department, and the Data Acquisition and Analysis team. Thus, making this the ultimate interdisciplinary scavenger hunt! For the coding aspect—”
The video paused; the audio almost giving out completely.
“—but…you’ve probably got the gist of it all!”
The video cut out again, skipping even more words.
“—office hours—”
…
“—questions—”
…
“—to see you soon!”
The screen then went black.
“There’s no way!”
“Wait—P. You said you found the radio waves on discord, yeah?”
“Yeah, I did.”
She pulled out her phone and clicked open the app, pulling up the server to show where Pidge had first seen the coordinates. It was a screenshot of an old reddit post by the OP Adrianna.
@adriannacocomice guys, check it.
—view thread—
She scrolled further down to show how people didn’t know what happened to the original poster. How all of her stuff was deleted after than. People theorized whether or not she deactivated herself, or if forced to deactivate.
“Wait, what’s the username of the person in the screenshot, again?” asked Hunk.
“ @ symbol. adrianna coco mice. No spaces. All lowercase.”
“Pidge. You’re going to be so mad.”
“Why?”
“It’s an anagram.”
“…you’re joking.”
“Oof, you’re gonna be so mad that you missed this—”
“Just rip the bandaid off.”
“It’s an anagram for CORANIMANIAC CODE.”
“You’re lying…”
“Afraid not.”
She threw herself onto the bed in defeat.
“Out of all of the small details I looked into, I didn’t realize that the OP was Coran? That’s so embarrassing!”
“Hey, you still did better than any of us could have done,” said Lance. Keith nodded in agreement.
“Well…should we go see him?” asked Hunk.
“On a Saturday? Why would he even be on campus?” said Lance.
“Let me see something—aha! He posted his phone number on the syllabus.” Pidge proceeded to text the number.
She was a bold one, that’s for sure.
He responded a half hour later and told her that he was in his school office. Why he was there… Keith didn’t know. But he wasn’t gonna question it as they walked through the hallway of the office building looking for his room number.
When they walked up to the door, it seemed that the professor was on the phone. He talked loud and fast, almost frantic yet excited. It was hard to follow and almost impossible to understand; his thick New Zealand accent made it seem as if he wasn’t speaking English at all.
They peeked inside to see him standing and talking, staring at the wall.
Pidge knocked on the door.
The man turned around to reveal the most orange mustache Keith had ever seen.
“Oh, hello there! Come on in!”
“We apologize if we interrupted anything.”
“No apologies necessary. I was just talking to good ol’ Pop-Pop!” He pointed to the picture hanging on the wall of a man with an identical face.
“Anyway—what brings you students here?—on a Saturday, no less!”
“We…have something for you.”
“Oh-kay. What is it?”
She dug around her hoodie pocket and handed the flash drive over to him. His eyes widened. He held onto onto it like it was the most precious diamond in the world.
“I—” he inspected the item, his eyes sparkling with delight, “I put this puzzle out during my first year as a professor. After all of this time…how remarkable.”
“Your first year?”
“Yes, over 15 years ago. I was hopeful at first…but then year after year it wasn’t solved. I even forgot about it at one point. By the time I remembered again, it had been so long, I just assumed that the original post had been lost forever. I never expected it to be cracked at all, if I’m being quite honest…”
“Someone uncovered a screenshot of the original post a few months ago, which is how I eventually found it…and then, y’know, we ended up here,” explained Pidge.
“Incredible!”
“Yeah.”
“Do you know how hard it was for me to lie to you? ‘Space chatter’—HA! As if I would write that off so easily!”
“In her defense, she didn’t believe you,” said Hunk, “otherwise, we wouldn’t be here.”
“Very true,” said Professor Coran, “and I am very happy you were smart enough to know I would never say that!”
Pidge nodded.
“So…did you guys have any questions for me?”
Lance nodded, “I did.”
“Shoot.”
“You said that you planned everything.”
“Yes, I did."
“So the arcade…”
“…Was supposed to still be up and running, my boy. All of the workers knew about the clues and were supposed to hand you the papers that held the clues to find the flash drive. But alas, times change. I do apologize if this caused you guys any trouble.”
“Nothing we couldn’t handle,” said Pidge.
Lance laughed, “yeah, okay. Maybe if there were two cops next time, maybe then you wouldn’t be so smug.”
“Pardon me? There was a cop?”
“Yeah, the one that almost arrested us after breaking into the building,” said Hunk.
“He didn’t ‘almost arrest us’. We got away perfectly unscathed,” reassured Lance.
“Yeah, the only pair of handcuffs were the ones attached to these bozos.” That was Pidge.
Coran looked at the pair of handcuffs that linked the two men together, “we’ll…come back to that later. But for now, let’s get back to the bigger issue. A cop?”
“…you didn’t plan for that to happen?”
“No!” Coran then opened up his laptop, “I’ll pull up footage of the arcade right now and give it a squiz.” He typed until live security footage popped onto the screen.
“Is this legal?”
“I sure hope so!”
He scrolled through more footage.
“What time did you say you were there?”
Pidge told him the approximate time.
“Got it.”
They watched the screen closely; watching the whole scene play out from a bird’s eye view. Which, seeing yourself from a third-person point of view was kind of trippy.
As the footage progressed, they suddenly saw all of them drop low to the floor. They watched the other, larger figure walk into the building and wave around a flashlight. Professor Coran paused and zoomed into the image on the screen.
“Wait, Zarkon?” yelled Coran in shock.
“Bless you?” That was Lance.
“What does that mean?” asked Pidge.
“Zarkon. He’s the ‘cop’ that was after you. I wonder why he was there…”
“Does he work for the school?” asked Hunk.
“Yeah, but he’s not a cop. He’s actually the football Head Coach,” clarified Coran.
“I knew he looked familiar!” That was Lance.
Well shit, he was right.
“Let me…” Coran grabbed his cellphone, “give me one second.” He left the room right as the person on the other line answered. A few minutes passed before he returned.
“Apparently he was there to make sure the area was safe.”
“How did he know we were going there?”
“He said that he was heading to campus for morning practice and ran into campus security. They said that they saw some kids sneaking off that looked like trouble. They showed Zarkon a picture from the cams. He recognized, and I quote, ‘the swimmer and Shirogane’s kid’—”
“I’m not his kid, I’m his brother,” clarified Keith.
“Same difference, my boy. He then said he would be the one to check on them…or…you guys, I guess.”
“Well, that explains why there wasn’t a cop car in the parking lot when we left.”
Ahh, so Hunk noticed that, too.
“Hunk, you knew?”
“I kinda figured. If it were an actual cop, he could’ve just towed the car and left it at that. But he didn’t. So I knew we weren’t ever in real harm…or in any possible risk of being thrown in jail…”
“Unbelievable…”
He just shrugged.
“Now that that is all squared away…can I finally ask about…that?” He gestured toward the cuffs tethering the two together.
“Uh, it’s a long story…”
“Not really,” said Keith.
“Yeah, I lied. It really isn’t.”
Lance then explained the initial story of how they became handcuffed together…and then told the other story of how Pidge and Hunk needed help…and then how they fell in the stairwell and almost died… and then the whole hospital debacle…and then the campus security visit. He mentioned having to sleep like a board…and then how Pidge pretty much dragged them along with her…
“And now we’re here.”
“Oh my—that’s a crack up.”
“I think it will be…when we look back at it in the future,” said Lance, “currently though…”
“Ahhh, I understand.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, do you want to detach?” Asked the Professor.
What kind of a question was that?
Of course they wanted to.
“I have metal cutters.”
Of course this guy had metal cutters.
“No way,” said Lance in disbelief.
“Yeah, I have them in my shop in the back.”
The light.
Keith could finally see the light.
Professor Coran grabbed at the metal. “Oh wow. These guys are on tight. I can’t imagine how painful this has been!” He angled Keith’s wrist in a way that created enough room for him to make the cut.
It slid off in one swift movement.
Holy shit! It’s finally off!
He rubbed at the raw skin. Lance soon did the same to his own wrist.
“Holy—thank you so much, Professor.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“My pleasure, boys. Glad I could help…anyway…you all must be knackered after all that hard yakka.”
Uh…?
“Only a little,” responded Hunk.
“Well, I better not hold ya. Go get some rest.”
They all nodded.
“Oh, and wonderful job.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Yeah, thank you so much, Professor Coran.”
“No, thank you. This was a very nice visit. I’ll see you in class, Pidge. Hunk.”
She gave a half salute, “See ya!”
They exited and were left to stand on the steps outside.
“Well, I think if I don’t get some sleep in the next 30 minutes, I might just KO mid-walk,” said Hunk.
“Same here. I am a few minutes away from a full system shut down,” said Pidge, not ashamed of her mid-sentence mega yawn.
“Alright, let’s head back to the dorm,” said Lance, who looked to Keith with a smile.
He smiled back.
“I should probably head back to my dorm. I have some assignments I need t’finish up before work tomorrow,” explained Keith. He didn’t miss the disappointment that spread across their faces.
“Right…well, don’t let us stop you!”
“Yeah!”
It felt weird being so far away from all of them.
“Thanks."
“Yeah. It’s been fun,” said Lance.
“It really has been. Thank you.”
“So…we’ll see you around?”
Hopeful.
Keith suddenly was reminded of how Lance tried to find him once before and failed. He didn’t want it to end like that time did.
“Definitely. You know where to find me this time.”
Lance smiled at him, as bright as the sun.
It had been about a month since he had been released from the handcuffs. His wrist no longer ached from the hard metal that rubbed against his skin for hours and hours, and his other wrist was now almost back to full health. Granted, he had to do these exercises for it, but hey, it could have been worse.
It could have been way worse, thought Keith. He was just lucky he could now hold multiple items in his left hand without dropping them. Otherwise, he would have been forced to hold a basket as he waited in line at the store…and he didn’t like doing that for some reason. He waited patiently in line and held on until he was close enough to plop all of his goods onto the check-out conveyer belt.
Checking the time, he realized he was running a little later than he thought. Once he received the receipt, he grabbed all of his stuff and sprinted out the door.
Okay, no.
Not sprinting. He would never run across campus, but he definitely was hauling ass in a dignified speed-walk. By the time he reached the main quad area, he had about 5 minutes to spare.
His phone buzzed in his back pocket. A text.
Lance: we see u
Pidge: bench
Keith looked around to try and spot them.
Keith: that’s pretty vague, don’t you think?
Hunk: look right.
Ahhh. Thank you, Hunk. He walked over.
It was nice outside. Not too hot, not too cold; with a gentle breeze that cooled them off whenever the sun stared a little too long. It was perfect and they basked in it as they laid on the grass. The blanket was soft, the grass was cool, and they had a bunch of snacks to munch on.
“I’m scared,” said Lance, holding a small bag of Fritos that were now a little soggy from pouring pickle juice on them.
“It’s not gonna kill ya,” somewhat reassured Keith.
“You don’t know that.”
“Stop bein’ dramatic.”
“Alright, alright. Three…two…one.” Lance then bit into the chips.
“Okay…” he chewed some more, “I see the appeal. The sweet, salty pairing…”
“Mhm.”
“…I still don’t like pickles though.”
He couldn’t win ‘em all.
“Well, we know you don’t have good taste, so there’s no surprise there.”
“Ha. Ha.”
“What do you guys think?”
“It’s definitely edible,” said Hunk, trying to spare his feelings. He took a big bite and scrambled for a napkin as the juice dribbled down his chin and onto his shirt.
“I’ll just stick to eating pickles,” said Pidge, taking a swig of her drink to mask the taste.
“That’s fair,” said Keith, adjusting himself to sit criss-cross. Lance leaned over and rested his body weight onto the other. The proximity was nice, despite no longer needing to be that close anymore.
“Did you know that pickles are good for you?” asked Lance.
Keith took a bite outta his own chips, leaning back, “I did, actually. A good friend of mine told me that once.”
“Well, your friend seems quite smart.”
“He has his moments.”
A smile was shared between the two of them.