O’Malley’s was considerably louder than I had expected. I stopped two paces past the door, letting the room sort itself out. It was a classic neighborhood pub: dark wood paneling, glowing neon beer signs behind the taps, and an ocean of people packed around high-top tables with pint glasses and plastic baskets of waffle fries. Luke spotted me first. He was sitting at a long booth along the back wall. When our eyes met, his face split into that effortless, unhurried grin, and he raised an arm to wave me over. Beside him sat Marc, already deep into an animated argument with a guy in a faded baseball cap. I wove between the crowded tables and reached the booth. "Mercer," Luke said, sliding over to clear a spot on the bench. "You found it." "I told you I understand maps," I said, slipping out of my jacket and sliding into the booth beside him. "Though the parking lot is an ethical gray area." "Told you she'd make it," Marc called out from across the table. He gestured with a pint glass toward the other two people sharing the booth. "Claire, this is Ben and Maya. They keep us from getting disqualified for general stupidity." "Nice to meet you," Maya said with a wave. "Ignore Marc. We just need anyone who knows things that happened before 1995." "I can handle that window," I said. A server dropped a fresh paper coaster in front of me. Luke leaned back against the vinyl seat, glancing over at me. "What are you drinking?" he asked. "Cider, if they have it on draft." Luke flagged the server. "Draft cider for her, and another round of waffle fries for the table." Before the server could even turn toward the taps, a man with a graying beard tapped a microphone near the jukebox, the feedback squeal cutting cleanly through the bar noise. "Alright, settle in," the host boomed. "Round one: General Knowledge. Keep your eyes on your own paper, phones face-down, and no fighting over sports history. First question: Which NFL franchise plays their home games at Lambeau Field?" I looked at the blank line on the answer sheet. Then I looked at Luke. He was already looking at me, one eyebrow cocked. "You don't know this," he said quietly. "I know Lambeau is a field," I offered. "Green Bay Packers," Luke said, picking up the stubby golf pencil and scrawling the answer across the paper. His handwriting was the exact same lopsided, bold block script he’d used to declare CLAIRE REQUIRES FEEDING on the Lab 7 whiteboard. I watched the pencil move. "Green Bay. Noted." "Round one, question two," the host announced. "What is the largest living organism currently identified on Earth?" Marc rubbed his chin. "Blue whale. Easy." "Not a blue whale," I said immediately. Ben frowned. "The redwood forest in California? The root system?" "Honey fungus," I said, leaning in toward the middle of the table. "Armillaria ostoyae. Covers over two thousand acres in the Blue Mountains in Oregon." The whole table paused, staring at me. Luke set the pencil down, leaned back against the padded booth, and gave Marc a slow, triumphant look. "What did I tell you? A weapon." "Write it down," Marc urged, pushing the paper toward Luke. "Before she realizes we're using her." The rest of the round went by in a fast, noisy blur. Maya owned nineties music, instantly naming the lead singer of Garbage before the host even finished reading the prompt. Ben carried European geography. Luke locked down movie release dates and baseball statistics with an easy, unhesitating recall that surprised me. When question seven asked for the inventor of the modern vulcanized rubber process, Luke didn't even look at the slip. He just slid the pencil across the table to me. "Charles Goodyear," I said, writing it in myself. "1844." "Show-off," Luke murmured under his breath. "Competence isn't showing off, Hayes." By the start of round three, the pub had gotten louder, the ambient noise rising as more teams realized their scores were slipping. Marc and Ben were leaning half across the table, debating whether a trivia question about Apollo 11 meant the launch date or the lunar landing date. To hear Maya over the roar of the crowd near the bar, I shifted an inch to my left. My knee bumped against Luke’s beneath the table. It was a solid press through our jeans. I didn't pull back. Luke didn't shift away, either. He leaned forward to check the score tally Marc was tracking on a napkin. His knee stayed where it was. "Question five," the host called out. "In what year was the first permanent transatlantic telegraph cable successfully laid?" Marc groaned, dropping his forehead onto his folded arms. "Nineteenth-century nonsense. We're dead." Luke looked down at the slip of paper between his elbows, then turned his head toward me, close enough that I lowered my voice automatically. "Don't look at me," I said. "That was 1866. Field had four failed attempts before the Great Eastern finally completed the run." Luke let out a low laugh, shaking his head. He wrote 1866 on the line with his characteristic, heavy hand. "You're terrifying, Mercer." "You keep saying that." "I keep meaning it." When the final scores were tallied, we didn't take the gift certificate. A group of local schoolteachers at the front booth edged us out by two points. "Fourth place," Marc announced, crumpling our scrap paper with exaggerated despair. "Disgraceful. We had a fungus expert and a transatlantic cable historian on our roster and we still couldn't beat the middle school faculty." "I am a systems engineer, Marc," I said, sliding out of the booth as people began clearing out. "Close enough." He gave us a quick wave. "See you at the badge readers tomorrow, Mercer." Ben and Maya split off toward the bar to settle their tab, leaving Luke and me to walk out the front entrance together. The night air was cool and crisp, a welcome shock after the packed pub. We walked side by side across the asphalt toward the row where my car sat beneath the amber streetlamp. His hands were tucked into the pockets of his canvas jacket, his stride matching mine easily. We reached the rear bumper of my hatchback. Luke leaned back against the edge of the trunk, looking down at me with that calm, unhurried ease that never seemed to leave him. "Thanks for coming," he said. "The team was actually respectable for once." "Your team would've been humiliated without me," I countered, digging my keys from my purse. "We came in fourth." "Imagine how bad it would have been if you'd written down blue whale." A quick laugh broke from his chest. "Fair point." I unlocked the driver's side with a double click of the fob. "I'll see you tomorrow, Mercer," he said, pushing off the car and taking a step back toward his truck. "Tomorrow, Hayes." I opened the car door, dropped into the seat, and started the engine. Before I pulled out of the space, my phone buzzed on the passenger seat. [Luke Hayes]: "Honey fungus won us that round. You're officially on the roster." I set the phone in the cup holder, shifted into reverse, and drove home.

Chapter 8: Low-Stakes Warfare