Naomi Lovelace: I don’t know. So much seems dependent on how the rest of the world responds. Do you know how I can access Valerie’s personal drive? It’ll be encrypted but with your help, maybe I can crack it. She’s been keeping a log, I know that. I’m hoping I won’t find anything, but.

She tapped her fingers against her thigh, waiting impatiently for the message to send and the reply to return. Was everyone asleep yet?

Evan Kan: But you want to check. I’ll start working up some instructions during the communication lags.

Naomi Lovelace: Thanks. Are you at work?

Technically he’d be able to route messages to his tablet, but that would have likely taken extra time, plus leave him vulnerable to discovery.

Evan Kan: I’m playing hooky. Needed a day not around people.

He wasn’t dashing off then. Naomi wouldn’t be interrupted by anyone. A chance for a proper conversation. She took another nibble of chocolate for strength as she tapped.

Naomi Lovelace: I need to tell you something. There is no easy way to say it.

Here goes. She sent the next message a minute later.

Naomi Lovelace: I’m nearly twenty-one weeks pregnant. I’m sorry for keeping it from you. Wasn’t sure it’d stick, or if I should carry on with the pregnancy. But the foetus is in good health, and Hart is monitoring everything. So I’ve decided to keep it. Her. I don’t know how involved you want to be, or not. It’s up to you. I’m not asking for anything you don’t want to offer. Valerie thinks it’s Cole’s. I haven’t corrected her.

She’d pressed send. No way to wrangle the signal back. It was a long four and a half minutes until it arrived at the base, and an even longer ten minutes before she received a response.

Evan Kan: Well. Whatever I was expecting you to say, it wasn’t this.

Naomi Lovelace: I should have told you sooner. It was a lot to take in, on top of everything else. I tried to, a few times. Chickened out. I’ve also been too afraid to ask if you regretted what happened. Or what it meant.

She closed her eyes as she pressed send. If she was going to open up to him, she might as well go all in. She wished she could see his face, though for so many years he’d been hard to read. Throughout her teen years, she’d been convinced Evan hated her. She’d been convinced she hated him. He could grasp things that took her hours of studying to understand. Learned how to break encryption just for fun. Yet he’d never had a clear plan. Stumbled about until Valerie made him go to a university. He was good at whatever he tried, whereas Naomi had to work at it.