new message. It was a screenshot of the extra ticket. He’d already bought it for me. It was ridiculously sweet, and I nudged him with my knee.
Thank you, baby. Can’t wait to let you educate me on these ‘comics’ I keep hearing about.
He replied with an eyeroll emoji.
Then there wasn’t any more time for secretive texting. The class was almost over. After all of the study guides for the final had been passed out, the professor looked to where Aiden and I were sitting. “Could I see the two of you after class?”
We nodded and I couldn't help but feel a thrill of excitement wiggle up my spine. As soon as our classmates had filed out, we made our way to the front desk where our professor was waiting. “Will you come to my office? I have someone who'd like to meet you.”
Aiden shot me a look of surprise and nerves. When the professor's back was turned, I reached out and squeezed his hand reassuringly, despite the fact that I was also feeling antsy. We followed him out of the lecture hall and down some hallways to his office.
My heart leapt into my throat as he opened the door and I saw who was waiting for us. It was the agent from the career fair. He looked every part an FBI agent, complete with fitted black suit and shades tucked into the pocket of his jacket. Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones would be proud. As soon as he saw us, his face lit up with a smile.
“Why am I not surprised that these are the two students who aced your group project?”
He stepped forward and shook our hands, his grip firm and professional, and I hoped my palm wasn't as sweaty as I thought it might be. “It's good to see you again, sir,” I managed, though my tongue felt large and clumsy in my mouth.
“I see you took my advice and went back to school,” he said to me before turning to Aiden. “And you as well. It's very good to see you here. I've heard great things about you from the professors here—we’ve been interested in you for some time.”
For some time? What did that mean? I looked between them, trying to see any hidden connections I might have missed. Why would they have been looking at him and not at me?
“So tell me a bit about how you went around solving the case.” The recruiter crossed his arms and looked at us and it suddenly felt as if we were being interrogated. I only hoped I had all the right answers.
“We each posited our guess at the beginning, and then split up the suspects for all of the analysis.” I was talking a bit fast, I knew, my nerves speeding up my whole system. It felt like I was on a racetrack with Aiden, though, and he was two steps ahead. I wanted to push to keep up.
Aiden nodded. “It took a while for us to rifle through all of the hard drives, phone logs, and text messages. Ultimately, I wrote an algorithm that searched for discrepancies and was able to determine that not all of the alibis lined up with the details of the murder.”
The agent turned ever so slightly toward Aiden, and I couldn't help but feel as if I'd been placed on the back burner. “Tell me more about this algorithm,” he said, the interest clear in his voice.
Was I being dismissed? Frustration simmered in my gut.
Aiden launched into a description of the code that he'd written. I'd admired it when he’d shown me during the project, but now I wasn't as happy about it at all. It wasn’t like the code was genius or anything. He’d just come up with it first. But there was no missing the interest in the federal agent’s face as he listened to Aiden's explanation.
“I was the one who made the connection that two suspects were involved instead of one,” I said, trying to interject myself back into the conversation.
“Huh,” the agent said. That was it. That ‘huh’ was all I got in recognition. I felt sick with envy, and shame, because it was obvious that the agent wasn't interested in me at all.
After Aiden had finished lining out the details of his coding and search methods, I tried one more time to prove myself. “Aiden and I are both excellent at getting around firewalls and protections. I have a decryption program I wrote that’s pretty strong,