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Her hand extended his direction. The woman was softer than Kira, bright eyes instead of dark ones, sweeter features that were motherly instead of sharp. He’d called Kira pretty last night and he could recognize this woman was casually pretty if he wanted to, but instead he focused on returning the handshake, one firm pump, then a release. A considerable improvement from before. “Quinn.”
“Good as new. Thank you Bree.” Kira emerged, her smile back to being white as ever and full. She was on time for the handshake.
Bree drew her hand back after it as well, only not as quickly, but instead of tucking her hands away she’d bring it up to point a finger at Kira prodding her on her upper arm lightly. “I’m done patching you two up every day. The next time you come in here, it better be for an actual accident.”
Kira looked scolded, but only superficially, because the corners of her lips were trying not to come up as she said, “Yes, Doctor.”
“I don’t think she is going to listen to you,” Quinn observed dryly. Then he paused. He’d just, well, he didn’t know for sure that she wouldn’t listen to Bree. It was just, he assumed, from what he knew of Kira, she wouldn’t. So he’d pointed it out, but that was... Huh, had he just teased Kira?
Bree found neither of them funny. Her down-turned mouth a clear sign, as she said just as dryly back, “She never does, but at least she can leave me to my work now.” She motioned for the door, insinuating they take their leave.
Kira made a defensive hands up gesture before turning to go, calling out over her shoulder, “thank you, Doctor.” The same thinly veiled amusement fluttered into her tone. She cackled as they departed.
Quinn followed her out, his annoyance with her mixed with his feelings about finally teasing her confusing, she caught him off guard by a sudden topic change.
“I have to relieve Morgan for a while.”
“Okay, I should go take a shower.”
When he emerged heading towards the bridge, he found Jaden crawling out of an air vent. The boy’s physique small enough he could shoulder through some of them. Quinn cross-referenced their location within the ship. The vent’s next let out closest to Rick’s room. Jaden looked slightly defeated in his expression as he dragged out a small red tool bag he’d been using.
Jaden spotted him before continuing to crawl out. He affixed the grate. “Do you just wander around now?” Jaden asked impolitely.
“Yes.” Quinn wasn’t sure why the kid sounded so sullen about it. Besides the fact, he possibly already knew what Jaden was doing. Pattern recognition was rather simple for him. The kid’s method of attack clearly depended on sneaking into places he wasn’t supposed to get into and then leave a trap behind.
Jaden pushed the old screws back into place. The air vents were one of the few antiquated things left in the ship, but necessary in case of an attack where they needed to shut off air or direct it through the ship for aerosols.
He looked up at Quinn when he said yes, catching the shrug. “If Bree would stop harping about my studies, maybe I could too.”
“Do you not want to learn what she is teaching?”
“Nah, it ain’t that.” The boy straightened, shouldering his bag. “Some things are okay, but she’s got me writing essays.” That seemed to displease him highly, or at least, made his face look pinched.
“Okay,” the definition flashed across for him, “That doesn’t seem that hard.”
“Maybe not for you with all those things stuck in your head.” He tucked his thumbs into the front of his pants, giving him a quizzical look as he considered what he was going to do next. “Speaking of computers, Alec said you’re able to make or break almost anything. Is that right?”
That comment about things in his head got a slight frown from Quinn. It was technically accurate, but he didn’t like the phrasing. He also wasn’t wild about what Alec had apparently said he could do, but again, technically accurate. “Yes.”
“Even the scanners for rooms?” Jaden had a glint in his eye. This was what Kira had been afraid of and warned him about. She’d told him not to help him with anything he could not accomplish by his own means and might. Opening doors into places he shouldn’t be in was definitely above and beyond that.
But Quinn wasn’t sure what the kid was getting at. “I built the scanners, yes. Almost everything new on the ship I built myself.”
“Oh good, I need help to open a door.”
“If you can’t open it, then you aren’t supposed to go through it.”
“It’s just Rick’s room.”
“Oh, then I can’t open it, anyway. The locks have a built-in fail-safe to seal if someone tries to bypass them. The only way to override the fail-safe is with DNA and password verification. People are meant to have exclusive access to their rooms and the things I build perform their intended functions."
There was, actually, a workaround even to this. During a red-alert all the doors on the ship automatically unlocked for safety but he would not explain that to Jaden.
Jaden popped his hands on his hips, looking as if he was deciding whether Quinn was telling the truth. “No matter,” he said, and his features contorted in a manner that said he had another idea. One that obviously didn’t involve Quinn as he took off, still going towards Rick’s room, which was around the corner.
Quinn tapped his foot as he thought about it before following Jaden. “You can’t get into Rick’s room, but what exactly are you trying to do?” Curious and, depending on what it was, he could help the kid.
“I was gonna switch out his shampoo.”
