landscape

[isthisart]

Linya avoids haring off to do things much while Miles's arms are unusable. Once he can feed himself comfortably enough to prefer to do so, though, she makes plans with Ekaterin to go with her and little Nikki on a hike in some nice woods of mixed-origin fauna. She packs a picnic and takes the lightflyer and flies out to pick up the relevant subset of Vorsoissons.

Comments

[thisvorlunatic]

He grins at her.

[as_i_remember]

"Hello, Linyabel. I've been thinking of getting a pen," says Simon.

[isthisart]

"I think you know my feelings on the matter of pens. Do you have unprecedented design requirements that will require months of optics fiddling?"

[as_i_remember]

"'Everyone ought to have a pen. Pens are lovely.' No, if I have any suggestions that require months of fiddling, they will be cryptographic in nature."

[isthisart]

"I will be happy to field security update suggestions."

[as_i_remember]

"That's convenient."

[isthisart]

"Besides contemplating your possible electronics acquisitions, what have you been up to?"

[as_i_remember]

"Not very much both interesting and suitable for dinner conversation. Not very much interesting at all, actually, which is always nice when you have my job." Then he smiles slightly. "I do happen to have an amusing anecdote about Mark, though."

[isthisart]

"Oh? What's he up to?"

[as_i_remember]

"It seems he has decided to express his displeasure at being surveilled by making the lives of my agents slightly surreal, rather than any more traditional kind of unpleasant. According to the latest report, the agent returned to his hotel room one evening to find that someone had lined up about five thousand dried beans in neat little rows on top of his freshly made bed."

[thisvorlunatic]

...

Miles cracks up.

[isthisart]

"Five thousand. Wow."

[as_i_remember]

"Abject puzzlement radiated from the description."

[thisvorlunatic]

"I'll bet," snickers Miles. "Oh my God, Mark."

[isthisart]

"And these were perfectly ordinary dried beans?"

[as_i_remember]

"Completely. No dangerous articles of any kind were introduced to the room, nor any of his belongings removed from it. He checked. Several times."

[isthisart]

"How restrained."

[as_i_remember]

"Yes. It's interesting."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Yeah," Miles agrees. "I mean, I could imagine myself playing pranks on somebody who was following me—God, could I—but nothing that... I don't know, psychological? Maybe that's not the right word. Maybe there isn't a right word. Dried beans."

[isthisart]

"Why, what would you do instead?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"I'm not sure. Little opportunistic things, it'd depend what I had to work with. I also don't think I'd be crazy enough to try breaking into his hotel room, unless—this guy was decently competent, wasn't he?"

[as_i_remember]

"More than. And yet, he could find no trace of how Mark got in or out. Not so much as a single dropped bean."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Maybe you should be offering Mark a job."

[as_i_remember]

"Ha."

[isthisart]

"Has it been readily doable to keep Mark on radar, or does he keep losing them?"