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Language:
English
Series:
Part 2 of AELDWS Round 10: Lightning Challenge: Fall 2016
Collections:
Inceptiversary Arthur/Eames Last Drabble Writer Standing (AELDWS)
Stats:
Published:
2016-09-07
Words:
446
Chapters:
1/1
Comments:
22
Kudos:
161
Bookmarks:
21
Hits:
1,778

Passive Surveillance

Summary:

“Honestly, Sir, we thought they were just trolling us.”

Notes:

Submission for Week 2 of the Arthur/Eames Last Drabble Writer Standing Round 10: Lightning Challenge Fall 2016. Many thanks to EternalSojourn for beta-reading, support, and well-timed flopping.

Genre: epistolary fic (can be canon or AU)
Prompt: low grade
Word count: between 300 to 350 words*

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:


TRANSNATIONAL MINDCRIME UNIT: NONSTATE ACTORS
COMMUNICATIONS CAPTURE 11 AUGUST 2016 00:43:23 GMT
Arthur, Daniel Matthew. 73% certainty
Eames, Edward Calvin. 96% certainty
Threat Assessment: Low grade
Risk to Apprehend: Unacceptable

 

---BEGIN INTERCEPT---

 

00:43:23 312.555.4013 to +44.7700.900077
Unsecured line but need to talk. Urgent.

 

00:43:36 +44.7700.900077 to 312.555.4013
wrong number

 

00:44:02 312.555.4013 to +44.7700.900077
Open Whisper key compromised. Surveillance on Wickr.

 

00:44:17 +44.7700.900077 to 312.555.4013
sorry — who’s this

 

00:44:41 312.555.4013 to +44.7700.900077
My mom knit you fluffy blue and purple socks.

 

00:44:54 +44.7700.900077 to 312.555.4013
go on…

 

00:45:33 312.555.4013 to +44.7700.900077
JFC! I have about four minutes.

It was Instanbul but you'd say Constantinople because you're a retro-romantic sap. Afterwards, you blamed the breeze off the Bosphorus, I blamed the raki. We were fucking cowards.

 

00:46:09 +44.7700.900077 to 312.555.4013
safeword

 

00:46:26 312.555.4013 to +44.7700.900077
We. Never. Use. It.

 

00:46:35 +44.7700.900077 to 312.555.4013
nevertheless

 

00:46:57 312.555.4013 to +44.7700.900077
Avocado. Also, you're a dick.

 

00:47:13 +44.7700.900077 to 312.555.4013
so you’ve said — darling — WTH happened

 

00:47:33 312.555.4013 to +44.7700.900077
Lem burned us. Morgan and Huang detained. I’m fine. Pissed off. Had to leave my loden jacket behind.

 

00:48:04 +44.7700.900077 to 312.555.4013
in future use of ‘loden’ sufficient to establish bona fides — aborting plans to fuck shit up and/or burn shit down — rendezvous at the place with the thing

 

00:48:31 312.555.4013 to +44.7700.900077
Is this a Sorkin script? The place with the thing inadvisable with ID available. I can get to the place with that bathtub you like.

 

00:48:52 +44.7700.900077 to 312.555.4013
roger that — rendezvous in bathtub — caution please — bathtub does not appeal without you

 

00:49:07 312.555.4013 to +44.7700.900077
Nothing appeals without you.

 

00:49:23 +44.7700.900077 to 312.555.4013
now who's the sap — fancy a bit of sexting so the NSA grunt can get off at work

 

00:49:34 312.555.4013 to +44.7700.900077
NSA grunt can suck my cock.

 

00:49:57 +44.7700.900077 to 312.555.4013
NSA grunt should be so lucky

NOTE TO NSA GRUNT — WANK ON YOUR OWN TIME — SOD OFF!

 

---END INTERCEPT---

Notes:

* A note about word count. Wow. This one was all over the place. Various word count programs peg this ficlet at 322, 344, 446, or 497 words depending on how the different scripts read the timestamp strings preceding each text message. I was getting such wildly different counts that I asked the mods to confirm that their official word count program for the challenge gave them the same results I was getting (332 words). In the end that's what I had to run with. Crazy-making stuff to be sure.