I looked up and blinked a couple of times. A guy stared back at me with a goofy grin on his face. A goofy and… hopeful grin. Crap.

I could use this, but Selena wasn't going to…

"I don't like this guy," Selena said.

It was almost enough to make me laugh. She had the telltale signs of jealousy, but she should know that jealousy was the last emotion she should have looking at this guy.

He wasn't my type, for one. He was a dude. Not my cup of tea. Not that it mattered if he was a dude or a woman. He could be a supermodel stepping off the runway and hitting me with a dazzling smile and I still wouldn't care.

Selena, Fialux, was the only woman for me. The problem was I couldn't very well say that when this guy was looking at me. Talking under my breath was all well and good, but it might make mouth motions that would tip this guy off that something was going on if he was looking right at me.

And right now? This dude was giving me the sort of up and down that would've caught something like that. Maybe. He did seem to be mostly staring at my chest.

I bit back a couple of choice phrases. Mostly telling him to bark up some other tree because I wasn't interested.

"Come on Natalie. Tell this guy to get lost and get back to doing your tech voodoo. I'm getting bored here!"

I was painfully aware that I was on a short timeline here. At any moment a living goddess could get so bored that she'd decide she was going to come out here and take care of things her way.

She'd made it abundantly clear that "her way" involved using her super powered body to drill beneath the Applied Sciences building and do the largest smash and grab in the history of Starlight City.

Which was saying something considering the kind of super powered smashes and grabs that had happened.

That would also put us right back at square one with another annoying fight with Dr. Lana. I didn't want a repeat of that. Especially when I still didn't understand those weapons she used against Fialux.

I acted like I was coughing and turned away from the hopeful looking dude. Just long enough to get a message off to the impatient goddess waiting in the wings.

"Would you please cool it and let me do this my way?" I asked. "You're going to screw this up."

"Does your way involve flirting with that guy?"

I kept the coughing fit going. I needed to talk to her and this guy was looking at me with the sort of rapt attention that only comes from a likely virgin checking out a girl who he hopes will help him get rid of that status.

"Just cool it and let me work," I said. "And remember you're the only one for me."

"Fine," she said.

I could see her crossing her arms and jutting her lower lip out in a pout even though I couldn't actually see her. The smash and grab was avoided. For now.

If she showed up and started ripping things apart it would be one hell of a warning for Dr. Lana. She'd hide all her best toys and shut down access to her computers. If she hid her best toys I wouldn't be able to figure out what the hell was going on here.

Mostly, though? I was still worried.

I'd seen Dr. Lana and some of her minions nearly take Fialux out the last time she visited the university with all her super guns blazing. And by super guns I meant the muscles in her arms which were the only set of biceps in the world that had a legitimate claim for being registered as concealed weapons when she wore a long-sleeved shirt.

Hell, they weren't concealed weapons. They were concealed weapons of mass destruction considering some of the damage she could deal.

Besides, it's not like I needed her here. I didn't even need any of my tech toys to get into these elevators, because it suddenly occurred to me that maybe I could get some use out of this guy without doing something that might tip off a security program buried deep in the wall.

"I'm supposed to be down on the lower levels for a class and…"

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

He rolled his eyes and let out a disgusted noise. "Let me guess. They didn't put your retinal pattern into the computer yet?"

I blushed and looked down. Tried to act like I thought a freshman girl with a crush on an obvious upperclassman who knew his way around the big bad Applied Sciences Department might look. I wanted to puke putting on the act, but I was willing to put up with a lot of bullshit in the name of doing this job.

Besides, next to putting up with CORVAC's digital bitching in my ear? Batting my eyelashes and pressing out the girls just a bit so he got a good view of my low cut top wasn't all that bad.

I'm sure that's what this guy was hoping for. Social Engineering 101. Give people what they wanted, whisper sweet little lies into their ears, and nine times out of ten they'd give you whatever you wanted. Sometimes more than what was in their power to give.

For the tenth out of ten? I always had my wrist blaster. Though something about the grin on this guy's face told me it wasn't going to be necessary to reduce him to his component atomic parts to take care of business.

"Something like that," I said.

I was careful to avoid any half-truths or lies. After all, there might be some sort of lie detector built into the monitoring systems that were no doubt watching us. I'd long ago learned how to spoof most lie detectors through sheer will and control of my physiology, but I was wary around Dr. Lana.

Not that I thought they were monitoring me in particular. Not if my disguise was working. I always assumed I was being monitored these days, what with the way society had set up a surveillance dystopia that would have Orwell spinning in his grave, and all it took was appealing to everyone's sense of vanity and desire for their fifteen minutes of fame.

No overbearing oppressive government needed, though I was sure those assholes were leveraging the share everything social media trend.

Best to assume I was being watched. Better to not lie at all. Better to pull an Aes Sedai where the truth I told someone wasn't necessarily the truth they thought they heard.

"I think I can help you out," he said. "It's a good thing you didn't try to get in there though. Majel here can get pissy if you try to get in without proper authorization."

I arched an eyebrow in a fairly decent approximation of a certain pointy-eared green blooded scientist from the television show I was pretty sure someone was referencing tongue firmly in cheek when they named the computer for the Applied Sciences Department Majel.

"What is he talking about?" Selena asked. "Is that another one of those nerd shows?"

I didn't respond. I kept my eyebrow raised. She might call it a nerd show, but anyone with any taste knew it was a fucking modern classic. Which is why I'd spent so much time learning a decent approximation of the world's most famous eyebrow raise.

I knew it was a decent approximation because I'd spent hours in front of the mirror as a young girl working the muscles in my eyebrows, holding one down repeatedly until I figured out exactly which muscle to flex to get my eyebrows to raise independently of each other.

"Majel?" I asked.

I figured guys loved explaining things to women. It would distract him even more if he got to explain something from Star Trek to me. The more distracted he was, the less likely he was to think about how odd it was that we were past midterms and I still didn't have my retinal scan in the system.

Or that I didn't know anything about the computer. Shit. Though when he grinned at me and glanced at my cleavage? I knew he wasn't thinking… logically.

"The computer that runs things here in the Applied Sciences Department," he said. "Named after some actress from Doctor Who or something."

Normally this would be the moment when CORVAC commented on how it wasn't good for my long term dental health to grind my teeth in the middle of a mission. He wasn't here anymore, though, so I'd go right on grinding those teeth.

"Majel?" the guy asked, turning to the panel.

"Ready," the computer said in a voice that sounded very familiar. "Retinal scan ID required."

The guy leaned forward and light flashed across his eyes. A moment later one of the elevators opened and he gestured for me to step inside.

He wore a goofy grin, but there was an element of cockiness to it now. As though I should be impressed and ready to bear his children because he knew how to work an elevator door.

Great. One of those. I suddenly found myself regretting using him instead of my smartphone to circumvent security. The smartphone wouldn't think I owed it five seconds of forgettable fumbling passion because it did a nice deed.

"Care to join me?" he asked.

"Is that seriously the line he's opening with?" Selena asked. "Please don't tell me you're falling for this."

I didn't tell her anything because I didn't want to reveal the voice buzzing in my ear.

I pushed back on a sudden revulsion that washed over me. There was something about the smarmy lascivious smile that had me wanting to lose my lunch.

I reminded myself that now was hardly the time to go losing my lunch. Especially not in front of the nice stupid college boy who was being nice guy enough to let me down into the highly restricted part of the Applied Sciences Department without even so much as a retinal scan and a thank you very much.

I'm sure he was expecting one hell of a thank you very much, but that was his problem. He could deal with the inevitable disappointment that was going to result from his outsized expectations later. Probably griping on the Internet to a bunch of other idiots who couldn't get laid that I was a total bitch for not dropping to my knees in the elevator because he was nice enough to open it for me.

"Don't mind if I do," I said, forcing a smile.

I stepped onto the elevator. I was annoyed, but I also couldn't believe it was actually going to be this easy. The old adage was true. You could have the best security in the world, and it didn't matter a whit if the idiots with access to your highly secured system were vulnerable to an old-fashioned man in the middle attack.

Though in this case I guess it would be more accurate to call it a low-cut shirt in the middle distracting the horny idiot who was allowing me to bypass all of their impressive security.

Whatever. As long as it worked I'd take it.

"Y'know you might've defeated me a hell of a lot sooner if you'd used this sexy femme fatale routine to distract me instead of fighting me over and over again," Fialux said.

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