Jess strong-armed Frank back into the tent and took two steps past him to stoop in front of the desk. Instantly she pinched her nose and took a look back at the hacker. “You do bathe, right?”

“And when, exactly, am I supposed to do that?”

She faced the screen again and scanned the words with her squinted eyes. “We offer a six hour break between shifts, Frank. What you do with them is your choice.” She stood and blinked rapidly to shake the tears that started to well. “My God, you’re rancid.”

Frank shrugged and shifted back and forth on the cheap vinyl floor. “Do you think it’s a real message or not, Jess?” She was coughing as she ran out of the tent and he followed her to watch her cough and then breathe in cool, purified air. “Well?”

Sighing, Jess closed her eyes and faced her head towards to the cave’s ceiling overhead. “I dunno, Frank. You’re the geek. You tell me.”

“If it was signal goop, the operating system would scrap it before I’d see it. This has code.”

Jess sighed again. “Well, there ya go.”