Hawkeye made sure to wake up early the next morning so that he could walk Trinity to the monastery.

He hadn’t really slept at all - it had been all he could do not to beg her to let him sleep on the floor of her room. It pained him to leave her alone when danger could be looming.

He’d spent the night in the darkness of the hallway between their suites, going on high alert with every creak of the old building.

Now the sun was rising bright, sparkling in the dew on the lush grass of the field. The world seemed fresh and new.

Trinity walked beside him, looking lost in thought.

He had hoped the way she leaned on him last night might mean she was feeling more open to him.

But if so, she wasn’t showing it right now.

“Who did Brooke inform about the break-in?” he asked. “What will be done?”

Trinity shook her head. “We’re not going to report it.”

“What?” Hawkeye asked. “Why not?”

“Brooke is buying the building next week,” Trinity explained. “We don’t want to do anything that could impact that. Reporting the break-in might mean she can’t get insurance.”

Hawkeye didn’t want to argue as he didn’t understand the complexities of Earth’s commerce, but privately he felt their safety was more important than the timing on buying the building.

“Who do you think it was?” he asked.

“Probably just kids,” Trinity said unconvincingly. “Veronica said she might bring one of the dogs by today and have a sniff around.”

“Why would children want to break into a file room?” He was astonished at the thought.

“Can we talk about something else?” she asked.

“Sure,” Hawkeye said.

But he was pretty sure he wasn’t going to be able to think about anything else.

“Thanks for helping me,” she said, as if it were a peace offering.

“It’s my pleasure to help you,” he said. “Do you enjoy your work?”

He didn’t really know of another way to ask without indicating that he thought her work was boring. Trinity seemed too smart to spend so much time on such a repetitive task. But maybe there was something about it he had missed, a subtlety that made it more difficult than what she had shown him so far.

“Ha,” she laughed mirthlessly. “It’s tedious, isn’t it? This is hardly the work I enjoy.”

“What kind of work do you enjoy?” he asked.

She didn’t answer right away and he studied her face. She was smirking slightly, her lips buttoned.

“Let’s just say it’s classified,” she said at last.

“I’m good at keeping secrets,” he replied.

But she only walked on.

They rounded the corner behind the monastery and he tried to distract himself by admiring the labyrinth made of bushes that filled the square between the chapel that came off the northern side of the back of the building and the admin offices that came off the southern side.

He turned back and caught Trinity looking at him with an odd expression.

“It’s cool, isn’t it?” Trinity asked.

“Yes,” he agreed. “Why was it built? To confound those who wished to intrude on the monastery’s peace?”

Trinity laughed for a moment.

“Have I said something wrong?” he asked.

“No, actually,” she said. “You would think that a labyrinth would be built for that reason, I just never thought about it. But in this case it was decorative. Probably in most cases.”

“I see,” he said, studying the overgrowth.

“At one time it was decorative,” Trinity amended. “Now it’s just spooky.”

Hawkeye thought it was beautiful, but they were already entering the chapel and Trinity was moving ahead of him to turn on the lights.

Not that they needed them. The room was already filled with soft early light.

They laid out the morning’s work in friendly silence. Something about the stillness of the room seemed to encourage quiet voices and peace.

They had just begun scanning when Trinity’s phone rang.

“Weird,” she said, raising an eyebrow.

Hawkeye was puzzled at the state of telephones on this strange planet. From all he had learned on Aerie, Earth’s many telephones were plugged into the wall and answered with alacrity when they rang, especially by women, who longed to speak into them for long amounts of time while twisting their cords.

Once he arrived, however, he found that modern telephones were tiny in comparison to their predecessors, except in cost. And they had no cords at all except during times when their batteries were charging. These phones were carried on the person at all times, but never used for speaking except under great duress. Instead, they were used as tiny computers or text messaging machines.

The few times he had seen Trinity’s phone repeatedly make what she called a “ring tone” she had looked down on it and “rejected” the call scornfully.

This time she picked it up.

“Hello?” she said breathlessly.

Hawkeye could just hear a high-pitched murmur on the other end.

“Shit,” Trinity replied.

More squeaking on the other end.

“Mm hmm,” Trinity agreed. “Okay, don’t worry.”

Quieter squeaking.

“No, don’t worry, I’ve got this,” Trinity said with finality.

She shoved the phone into her pocket angrily, then slid her stool up to the table and began tapping furiously on the keyboard.

“What’s wrong?” Hawkeye asked, moving toward her.

He saw the indecision in her eyes - she wasn’t sure if she trusted him.

He waited, holding his breath, willing her to believe in him.

“You said you were good at secrets,” she said at last. “Come see what kind of work I enjoy.”

He joined her behind the screen before she could change her mind.

“This just hit the social news sites,” she said, tapping the screen.

ALIEN IN LAKE

Submitted 45min ago by DaddysSweetCar69

213 comments - like - report

Next to the words was an image with a triangle at its center that told him it was a video.

The image showed Hawkeye’s brother, Remington, coming out of a lake.

“Oh, no,” he breathed. “That’s my brother.”

“Damned skippy that’s your brother,” Trinity said. “And he’s going to be at the top of the first page if this goes on for another hour.”

Hawkeye felt the blood drain from his face.

“This is terrible,” he said. “The women at Stargazer could go to jail.”

“Not on my watch they won’t,” Trinity said.

Her fingers were moving on the screen so fast he could hardly see them. She had left the page with Remington’s video on it.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I’m reaching out to a friend who can help us make it invisible.”

“How can you do that?” Hawkeye had been under the impression that things could not be removed from the internet.

“That site requires articles to be up-voted in order for them to gain visibility,” she said as she typed. “My friend can mobilize an army of white-hats to down vote it.”

“White hats?” he asked, completely lost.

“Most hackers manipulate news sites or hack into websites to do harm, or to get money or power,” Trinity said, her fingers never slowing. “White-hats, like me, do it only for good - to protect people.”

“So there are computer hackers who help people,” Hawkeye mused. His understanding of hackers was overwhelmingly negative. This was an interesting idea.

“Yeah,” she said. “My friend, who I play video games with at night, she’s got a whole group she’s part of. She’s on now, thank god. She’s got the link.”

But Trinity didn’t stop typing.

“Now what are you doing?” he asked.

“Comments,” she said. “If the comments say that the video is a hoax, that will help prevent up-votes from the rest of the online community, which will keep it from gaining any traction and possibly getting noticed by the wrong people. But comments will be more helpful if they’re in English.”

“So who are you communicating with now?” he asked.

“Another friend,” she said. “A whole bunch more, actually.”

He watched as she worked.

“Check the site,” she told him, pointing at the computer next to hers. “Just refresh the page.”

He refreshed the page and the video had disappeared.

“Is it there?” she asked.

“No,” he said.

“Search for it,” she advised with a smile. “Type alien in lake” in the search bar at the top.”

He followed her instructions and the video reappeared.

“Check the comments,” Trinity advised.

There were now 295 comments. He clicked on the link.

Comments moved across the page angling one way and then the other.

FAKE

This is so fake, look at the clip at 1:18, clearly spliced.

SO many wannabe aliens. I’d still do him. LOL.

U sure it’s fake?

Um, yeah!

Fake. Fake. Fake.

Trinity straightened and looked up from her screen for a moment.

“So what do you think?” she asked. “Is it invisible?”

“It is,” he said, nodding slowly.

“Well, it isn’t yet,” she returned to stabbing at her keyboard. “But it will be by the time we get done with it. That was a close call, by the way. Your brother is lucky we caught it when we did.”

He watched her, in awe.

Trinity was many things in Hawkeye’s view. She was kind, she was quiet, she seemed younger than her two best friends. She worked hard and didn’t complain. She was deeply private.

He had never seen her like this - totally engaged in what she was doing, abrupt, confident, and deeply pleased with herself.

This was Trinity’s passion. This was what drew her to computers. Not the tedium of organizing data storage, but helping people.

And she was networking with others to do it. Those people she was typing to, they were true friends - her brothers and sisters in arms. And shy, quiet Trinity was respected among them.

Hawkeye felt a fierce pride burning his chest as he watched his digital warrior protect his family.