(GQ #3) Life in Orbit

3. Nighttime Negotiation

Aiden navigated the long outdated forums of interstellarfonies.net, having a good laugh. It was the unofficial hub for Interstellar Forces deniers, where old geezers with way too much time on their hands really knew how to craft a story. Little did they know, Aiden did a little crafting of his own, building upon their wildest conspiracies.

"What'cha doin'?" His roommate Leon stood by the freshly-stocked refrigerator, chomping on a cheese stick.

"Convincing old geezers that the moon isn't real." Aiden gave an honest answer.

"W-Why?"

He smirked at him. "Because I can."

The horrified expression on Leon's face was worth more than a thousand words.

"Aidennn," he whined, "it's bad enough that they don't believe in the IF, why do you want to rob them of the majesty of space?"

"Kid, they don't believe in the majesty of space. These people believe in a government plot to siphon their tax dollars by building a dome city in a desert somewhere and pretending it's on the Moon."

"You're on IF.Net, aren't you?" Leon took another bite of his cheese stick.

"Yep."

He shook his head, then seemed to notice something. "Hey... Isn't that Jun's tablet?"

"Yeah, he let me borrow it."

Leon didn't seem to believe that answer, but Aiden didn't care. He could ask Jun himself if he wanted to know so badly. In fact, they almost bumped into each other as Leon left the kitchen.

"Aiden's using your tablet for evil." were his parting words. Snitch.

Jun watched him leave, then gave Aiden a tired look. "Do I even wanna know?"

Aiden raised his eyebrows. "Do you?"

"Whatever, as long as you're not messing around on any of my accounts." The older ranger took a seat beside him.

Aiden folded his friend's tablet back into a phone and slid it across the table. "Here, you can have it back."

Jun swiped it up. "Thank you."

"How's your friend doing? Still spooked?"

"Nah, she bounced back pretty quickly."

He was glad to hear she was doing alright. She may've been a little weirdo, but she was the little weirdo who saved his life today.

"I've been thinking about what she said." began the blond, pinching his beard. "About how we're older than everybody else. Number one, that's nuts. You know that's nuts, right? There are four people younger than her, and two of them are our captains."

"It's a... really interesting situation to find ourselves in, yeah." Jun tried to hide how obviously freaked out he was. He failed.

"Number two, I've been thinkin'," he drummed his fists on the table. "Who's to stop you from being fully... yourself?"

"What do you mean?"

Aiden would be more direct, but outing Jun in front of whoever might be watching the cameras wasn't his intention.

He covered his mouth. "The 'them' thing."

"Ohhhh!" Jun reacted like the airhead he liked pretending to be. "What's stopping me from telling the others about that? I'm The First Woman in the IF, there are a lot of eyes on me. I don't know these people yet; one of them might leak it out to the public."