I haven't updated this for a while, and my posts will likely be sporadic at best for the next I don't know how long. My life has just gotten rather complicated, you see.
Explanation? I'll begin by saying that I've never really liked the word normal. In my mind, it's always been synonymous with boring, mundane. So it only makes sense that when a job offer came along that was more than a little out of the ordinary, I jumped on it.
It started with that e-mail I got a few weeks ago. The one from the 'Major'. Well, it was nearly untraceable, as seems to be the norm for these 'offers of employment'. The difference with this one is that the organization behind it is actually legitimate. A nice change, to be sure, but suspicious since usually such organizations go for homegrown talent. I resolved to ignore it, managing to do so for nearly sixteen days before curiosity finally found the keys to its carefully constructed cage and rushed out bent on the destruction of all other coherent thought until I caved to its demands. That night, I clicked reply. Well, one thing led to another -- no surprise there, these things always do. Within four days I was going against better judgment and flying halfway across the world to meet with my prospective employers. I can't go into great detail about my new job, but I will say this: the boss wasn't kidding when he said that it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I can safely say that I've stumbled into the computer geek's fantasyland.
I'm not stupid, I made sure that I can always back out later if things get too crazy. But I think I can trust these people. And for once, that's enough. Not that it won't keep me from doing a few background checks of my own. . . .
Besides, life was getting predictable. We can't have that, now, can we?
Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick -- tock
Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick -- tock
There was no mistaking it. The clock in her room ran slow, to the tune of some -- she mentally subdivided the seconds as beats, calculating a lag roughly equivalent to a sixteenth note -- 0.75 second loss per minute. Convenient, for the lagging beat to occur every ten seconds. It made mental math all the easier.
Hmm . . . three-quarters of a second per minute equaled forty-five seconds per hour equaled . . . carry the two . . . 1080 seconds per day, or eighteen minutes. Multiply that by 365 days per year, and this clock had missed out on some 6570 minutes or, ah, roughly four and a half days each year since its manufacture. Bethany briefly wondered if she shouldn't invest in a watch that ran fast, to add (at least psychologically) a few days to her life. She smiled to herself. I'd probably just use the extra time as an excuse to hit my snooze button once more each morning.
. . . tick tick tick tick -- tock
Now that it no longer provided much of a diversion, the clock's irregular rhythm was just getting annoying. She reached over to her bedside table, wondering why a place like the Mendellian consulate wouldn't invest in a higher quality timepiece. The batteries duly removed, she offered the offending device a self-satisfied smirk before turning back to her datapad with a frown.
It had been relatively easy to unearth the information she desired about most of Terra Group. The basics of who they were had been covered in the official briefing documents, but such dry profiles were of little interest to her once she had committed the names, ranks, and faces to memory. Bethany sought to construct comprehensive character sketches, of a sort, detailing each member's strengths, weaknesses, and personality quirks. Without, of course, having to actually ask them about themselves; largely impractical anyway since a fair portion of the group was currently on a mission across the Atlantic. She somehow doubted the Paris team would appreciate their new comrade calling them up to chat about their personal lives -- "Umm, hello, Lieutenant Cochran? I was wondering what your favorite pastime is. Oh, you're in the middle of a shootout? But it'll only take a minute . . . . Well, when you put it that way, I guess I could call back later." Besides, building the database her way was just a lot more fun. It allowed her to practice information-gathering techniques. And she didn't have to give up any information herself. That was key; she prized and delighted in having the upper hand.
It had been extraordinarily simple to learn about Lt. Bush. As future queen of the small island nation of Mendellia, her private life had perforce become rather public. By keeping her ears open whilst wandering Mendel City the day before her departure, she'd managed to gain a fairly balanced feel for the dictator's fiancée. Not that's she'd been foolish enough to base her profiles entirely on gossip and hearsay -- the palace's computer network was terribly unprotected from anyone on the inside. Most of the personal computers had little more than password-protection to keep out unwanted visitors, so it was the work of a few moments to access the hard drive of any given console in the system. Which led to her spending the past few hours dissecting the entertaining and occasionally shocking journal entries of one Michael Clark, Lieutenant, New Republic Intelligence.
In all, her datapad now held a fairly complete analysis of each of her teammates, compiled through a perusal of chat logs, newsgroup posts, e-mails, and web browser histories, in addition to files of a more classified nature. She felt she now knew who she could trust and to what extent, who could take a joke, and who should probably spend less of their online time looking at scantily-clad celebrities of the opposite sex.
With one notable exception.
Major Scifantasy was nearly as much of a mystery to her as when he'd first introduced himself. Oh, she'd gained access to his personal machine, though his security program was markedly more difficult to crack than any other in the network; which led her to ponder for a moment whether he knew of the system's deficiencies or if he was just paranoid. Maybe both. . . . It didn't really matter. She'd relished the challenge, expecting to uncover a trove of fascinating data. No such luck.
What she found was little beyond the programs the machine had been shipped with. Cripes, most computer stores had display models with a more interesting file system. There was no way the major could be as boring as his system suggested, which meant that he had to be keeping his personal files elsewhere. Where that was, exactly, she hadn't been able to determine.
Granted, she could always try to unearth some personal information by actually going out into the suite's large common area and talking to him, but he was currently deep in conversation with a good friend who, she gathered, he hadn't seen in some time. She didn't want to interrupt them. Their discussion provided another option -- eavesdropping -- but that was unethical. A major breach of trust. Even she considered it a bad thing to lose your boss's good favor in less than a week, especially when he had acces to a rather impressive arsenal. Not that she expected him to use it for so small a matter, but still . . . .
Outside her door she heard Lorrdain the younger bid the two good-night. With a yawn that settled into a frustrated grimace, she hit the button to log off her laptop and powered down her datapad. Bethany pulled herself up from the lovely overstuffed chair she'd been occupying for far too long and dragged her protesting muscles the few metres to her bed. She could always try again tomorrow.