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“It’s probably Cruncher and Veridian. Your friend is probably worried about you.”
    “Oh, right.” She slipped out of his grasp, casually straightening her shirt. She glanced up to see Carl still watching her. She flushed and nodded toward the door to remind him about the visitors. He sighed in resignation and hit the button to open the door.
    Cruncher and Veridian stepped inside. Veridian was grinning and held up Kayla’s equipment. “Zane wasn’t able to beat your time even using OmniLab’s fancy equipment. He seemed pretty frustrated and wants to watch you again at some point.”
    Cruncher took a quick glance around the room, his eyes moving to the bottle of scotch on the desk and then settled on Carl’s annoyed expression and Kayla’s mussed hair. His mouth twitched in a grin.
    “So, how goes the recruitment, Boss? Convince her to switch sides yet?”
    Carl frowned, giving Cruncher a dark look. “It was progressing nicely. I think I covered most of the major points. Did you have any other questions, Kayla?”
    Kayla shook her head, shoving her hands in her back pockets. “Nope, I think you covered everything.”
    The door beeped again and slid open. Xantham stepped through the door and tsked at Kayla like she was a naughty child. He held up a small metal device no bigger than his thumb. “Hey, Boss. You know how you mentioned you wanted me to do a sweep after Kayla and Veridian passed through to make sure they didn’t accidentally leave anything behind? Well, I managed to find this little bug. It must have gotten away from them.”
    He slid the listening device across the desk toward Carl. Carl picked it up and examined it closely. He tossed it back down on the desk and looked at Kayla expectantly.
    She looked down at the bug and then back up at Carl, giving him her best innocent look. “Gee. Looks like you’ve got bug problems here too. Nasty little things. You know, we had that same problem up until last night. Seems like there’s something going around.”
    “Imagine that,” Carl replied. He turned to Xantham. “Start scanning my office.”
    He leaned across the desk toward Kayla. “I can only guess what we're going to find in here too. Although, I can’t say I didn’t enjoy your little distraction.”
    Kayla bit down on her bottom lip, still feeling the effect of the kiss. With a small shrug, she said, “It’s always nice to take pleasure in one’s work.”
    He raised an eyebrow at her. “You’re going to be more trouble than I expected, aren’t you?”
    Veridian held up his hands. “Leo tells her that all the time. You might want to reconsider whatever offer you made.”
    Carl gave Kayla a long, lingering look and then shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. The offer still stands. I enjoy a challenge.”
    “Glad to hear it,” she replied easily and winked at him. “I’ll enjoy giving you one.”
    She took her equipment from Veridian and turned to look at Carl one last time before heading out. “Thanks again for the tour. It was enlightening. Good luck with your bug problem.”

 

Chapter Three
     
    Kayla woke up in a bad mood. Her comlink had somehow been turned off during the night and she was running late. She’d planned to be down in the ruins first thing in the morning and it was already approaching noon. On top of that, Veridian wasn’t in camp and she didn’t have a clue where he could be. I have to go chase his ass down now too.
    She hurriedly pulled on her jacket and yanked on her boots before throwing the backpack containing her tools over her shoulder. As she neared the exit, Leo came around the corner and stopped her.
    “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
    She frowned, wondering what could have Leo agitated this early in the morning. He usually saved his tirades for the end of the day. Part of her wondered if he spent the whole day thinking up new colorful insults to try and best her in their verbal sparring matches. One of these days, she was