Recondite {Malia Tate}

28: Pack Meeting and Italian Food

Stiles, Charlie, and Malia silently watched the dead pool machine as it whirred and ticked, processing new and old information. Charlie's blue eyes wandered the machinery, a fist suddenly flying past his face.

 Charlie tripped over his feet as he clumsily grabbed Malia's arm, "Oh, my God-" he squeaked as he quickly caught her balled fist. "We can't just destroy it," he told her, letting go of her arm, but savoring the warmth of her hand for a few moments longer.

Stiles released a tense breath, "Okay, that could have been seriously bad," he said. "If this thing's being used to disseminate the list, then its probably gonna keep going until everyone's dead."

Charlie let his fingers slip past Malia's shoving his hands into his pocket, "That's comforting."

"What do we do?" Malia asked, eyes momentarily flicking to where Charlie had his hands stuffed in his pockets, she wanted to hurry this whole mission up because she wanted those hands on her.

She cleared her throat, shifting in her spot to look in between Stiles and Charlie, awaiting an answer.

"It need some kind of prompt," Stiles said, "or command or something, right?"

Malia slowly approached the machine and Stiles went to stop her, "No, no, no-" she slapped his hands away, her pretty brown eyes assessing the dead pool.

"What about a key?" Malia asked, pointing to a space made for the insertion of a small key.

Charlie pulled his phone from his pocket, "Malia, you're getting whatever you want for dinner tonight," Charlie praised his detective in the making, ignoring the annoying blush that betrayed his moment of confidence.

Malia grinned to herself as she watched Charlie call Lydia. She looked down at her shoes for a moment to hide her giddy smile. She didn't need Stiles making fun of her for being too girly around Charlie, it got annoying after the first time.

"You see it?" Charlie asked, pointing his camera at the dead pool.

"I don't know," she told him from the phone. "I don't know anything about computers from the 1970s."

"Neither do we!" Malia called loudly into the phone, mushing her face against Charlie's to get in view of the front camera.

"Okay, where's the monitor?" Lydia asked.

Stiles snatched the phone from Charlie's hands, "Lydia, there is no monitor," he told her. "There are buttons, knobs, spindles, no monitor," he moved the camera angle back to the machine, and Lydia spoke up.