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there yet. Who cares if she sees an empty room?”
    I stare at the pale blue door and the combination lock, which of course I know by heart. No doubt, it’d be easy, but the rules say—
    “Sweet Christmas, Beecher— I’ll open the damn room for her!” Orlando calls out.
    He heads for a call box and presses the silver intercom button. A small red indicator light blinks awake as a soft-spoken voice answers, “Security.”
    “Venkat, it’s Orlando,” he says, speaking close to the intercom. I recognize the name from our staff list. Venkat Khazei. Deputy chief of security. “I’m opening SCIF 12E1,” Orlando says. “Just doing spot checks.”
    “Sounds good. Just remember: Moses is on his way, eh,” Khazei replies through the intercom, using our own internal code name for the President.
    “That’s why I’m checking the room first,” Orlando barks back.
    The intercom goes quiet, then crackles once more. “Enjoy.”
    As Orlando strides back toward us, his toothy grin spreads even wider.
    Under my shirt, I wear a thin leather necklace with an old house key on it. During high school, when I worked at Farris’s secondhand bookshop, I found the key being used as a bookmark in some old dictionary. It’s kooky, but that day was the same day I got accepted to Wisconsin, the first step in escaping my little town. The magic key stayed. I’ve been wearing it so long now, I barely even feel it. Except when I’m sweaty and it starts sticking to my chest. Like now.
    “Beecher,” Clementine whispers, “if this is skeeving you out, let’s just skip the room and—”
    “I’m fine. No skeeving at all,” I tell her, knowing full well that Iris would’ve had me leave ten minutes ago.
    “Here, hold this,” Orlando says, offering me his cup of coffee so he can work on the combo lock.
    “No food or drinks allowed in the SCIFs,” I remind him, refusing to take it.
    “Really, are those the rules, Beecher?” he shoots back. Before I can answer, he hands Clementine his coffee cup and gives a few quick spins to the lock.
    With a click and a low wunk , the door pops open like the safe that it is.
    Even Orlando is careful as he cranes his neck and glances inside, just in case someone’s in there.
    I do the same, already up on my tiptoes to peer over Orlando’s shoulder and make sure we’re all clear.
    Clementine’s different. She doesn’t rush—she’s not overeager in the least bit—but with a quick, confident step she heads inside, totally unafraid. It’s even sexier than telling me to stare at her breasts.
    “Our own little Oval Office,” Orlando adds, motioning palms-up like a flight attendant showing off the emergency rows. Yet unlike the Oval and its grand decor, the small windowless room is beige, beige, and more beige, centered around a wide oak table, a secure phone that sits on top, and two wooden library chairs.
    When they first see it, most staffers blurt, “ That’s it? ”
    Clementine circles the desk, studying each beige wall like she’s taking in a Picasso. “I like the poster,” she finally says.
    Behind me, stuck to the back of the metal door, is a poster featuring a steaming hot cup of coffee and a red-lettered warning:
    A lot of information can spill over one of these.
    Make sure that your conversation is secure to the last drop.
    Yet as I read the words, my brain backflips to—
    Crap. Orlando’s coffee.
    “No, not on there ,” I plead with Clementine just as she’s about to take a seat and lower the open cup onto the President’s desk. If it spills…
    I reach to grab it; she jerks her hand to protect it. That’s all it takes. The back of my hand brushes against the styrofoam—the cup tips—and the light brown liquid splashes across the desk, racing to Clementine’s side of the table.
    A waterfall of coffee pours down, tap-dancing in a fine neat kick-line across the polished floor.
    We need to get this clean before the President…
    Clementine jumps back to avoid the mess, and