“We could, but that could cause problems,” Aisha indicated, Kimberly and Trini nodded. Kira was seeing them in a whole new light.

“So, lets start at Victoria’s Secret,” Kimberly giggled. The other girls smiled.

“NO NO NO WAY! That’s where I draw the line, Kim.” Tommy stated clearly. “I’ve put up with this whole idea, but I draw the line at underwear.”

Kim just looked at him for a moment, her face devoid of any smile. She bit her lip, and nodded, but Tommy didn’t miss the distinct look of longing in her eyes. “You’re right. That’d be going a bit too far,” she replied. “We’re just friends.” She added, as if to remind herself.Tommy fought back a sigh. Mentioning Kat around him wasn’t exactly forbidden or anything. They hadn’t ended on bad terms, really; she’d gone to London, he’d said he didn’t want to do the long-distance relationship thing. She had screamed and ranted and stormed off, to be sure, but she’d come back and apologized and asked him to reconsider. He’d said no, though he’d truly been sorry about it, but he could tell she’d taken it hard. They’d promised to stay friends, but that hadn’t worked too well, either. They simply hadn’t had much to say, though they tried to chat on occasion and he’d seen her a few times since. When it came down to it, he wished her the best, and he was pretty sure she returned the sentiment. So it wasn’t that Kat was a taboo topic around him—but he knew fully well that the others were freaking out about the fact that she’d been mentioned around both Kimberly and Tommy. That wasn’t just awkward, it was annoying; he didn’t want the others thinking that he was trying to do anything other than repair his friendship with Kimberly. It also sparked a bit of that buried anger within him—after all, she had left him. Why shouldn’t he have dated other girls?Billy nodded, “That shouldn’t be hard. I’ll talk it over with Tommy. We’ll assign you something. Come to think of it, it might actually be beneficial to assign all of you something. If only to have a good excuse why you’ve been traveling through the gates.”

Earlier in the morning, Trini had brought to his attention an information request she had pulled from the main computer system. She had noticed that someone was interested why Carri, a TV host, would spend so much time in and out of the high security areas of NASADA. He was pretty sure it was the same tabloid who’d published a nasty article about her giving up her show and boyfriend to carry on an affair with her karate instructor. It was nonsense, but it was also a security risk.