(no subject)
Aria is slow like an elephant ninja! Which is what happens when one attempts to write loggage on one's lonesome. So! In which Val is whisked away to sort out things with Nora.
And ends up recruiting her.
*whistles innocently*
Meligot doesn’t give Val much time to snatch anything before he finds himself transported and standing on a neat doorstep somewhere in Bristol. Evidently she’s angry enough that she doesn’t care she’s sending him somewhere potentially dangerous.
Not that this part of Bristol looks terribly dangerous.
He knocks on the neat white door.
No answer.
Again.
Footsteps pattering downstairs from inside the house, and Val grins faintly, shifting so that he can lash out in a moment if anything untoward happens.
A girl opens the door.
Val doesn’t stare at her, because even years of retirement haven’t made his diplomatic skills all that rusty, but a single glance at her confirms she’s telling the truth. She’s nearly as tall as Val; she has thick dark hair and a stubborn chin, and she holds herself in the same alert, defiant way that Alden had even as a teenager. He recognises these things, though the girl also has friendly hazel eyes and a slightly snub nose. She’s wearing darkly brilliant red lipstick and a slightly puzzled expression.
“Yeah?”
“Afternoon,” Val says (at a guess; it could just as well be midmorning here). “I’m Val Espen from the top-secret agency whose system you managed to hack into.”
The girl’s chin goes rather stubborn. “How’d you get my address?”
“Advanced tracking device,” Val says. “Hell if I understand it; I’m not in the technological sector. I’m damage control.”
“Going to brainwash me?” Her voice is entirely flat.
“Lord, I hope not.” Val offers a smile. “I should like to come in for a cup of tea and a look at your computer, though, if you please, Miss Alden.”
“Nora,” she corrects, and steps back from the doorway. “By the way,” she adds sweetly as Val steps inside, “if you’re actually a stalker, I’ve been taking karate since I was nine.”
“Duly noted, Nora,” Val says courteously. “However, I am far more interested in drinking tea and exchanging explanations than in kidnapping.”
Nora nods. “Soft drinks good enough? I’m pants at tea.”
“Shall suffice,” Val returns magnanimously, and follows his host up the stairs. “Incidentally, if you’re still considering your kung-fu-”
“Karate.”
“-Yes, that-if you’re still considering it, I can show you my card. Quite above board.”
Nora comes to a halt in the upstairs corridor and holds out a hand. “Let’s see it, then.”
Val hands it over, and she studies it for a long moment. Her eyebrows arch delicately. “They,” she says flatly, and looks up. “Cute.”
Val has spent enough time with Alden to recognise sarcasm covering real amusement in this girl’s voice.
“Yes, isn’t it,” he says cheerfully.
“Well.” Nora hands the card back. “Here’s my room, anyway.”
It looks, unsurprisingly, like a teenager’s room. There are piles of clothes and comic books on the floor, a few band posters and a giant map of Middle Earth on the walls, a tall bookcase full of beat-up old paperbacks, a corkboard pinned with bright pictures of teenagers-Nora’s friends, Val supposes-and a desk upon which sits a sleek desk lamp and a sleeker laptop.
“So,” Val says, perching on Nora’s black-and-white checkered quilt, “let’s see those instructions of mine.”
Nora nods, sitting down at her desk, and plucks a yellowing paper off the corkboard. She hands it to Val.
He stares at it. Instructions thirty years out of date, in faded pen, in horrible scribbling handwriting. Given a week and extensive search of his memory, Val might be able to hack it. “My god,” he murmurs in amazement. “Al-Nora, how did you do this?”
She crosses her arms. “It wasn’t easy.”
“I imagine not!” He regards her in fascination for a moment. “Care to explain how you managed to come across this? As I recall, I left it in Kent.”
Nora laces her fingers together. “First tell me what you know of family history, if you know my cousin.”
“I only know what Alden’s told me,” Val says quietly, “and that’s precious little. His mother died when he was fifteen; I recruited him for THEY the next year. This note-” he holds it up-“was contact instructions we’re required to leave with the erstwhile guardians of all our underage recruits. That’s all I know.”
Nora nods slowly, and Val can see she suspects otherwise. Still, she says, “That explains some things,” and leans back in her chair. “Okay. My dad used to tell me stories about my Great-Aunt Mary and how she married Lord Kent, and how right afterwards she died, my dad’s cousin John vanished-that’s where you come in, I guess-and about a year later his Lordship died. It all seemed pretty odd to me, and I wanted to know what’d happened-but dad wasn’t interested in looking.” She shrugs.
“Why look now?” Val prompts quietly after a moment.
“I turned eighteen,” Nora says with a fierce little grin. “That gives me legal grounds for the Alden part of the Kent estate; some was left to us, but my dad never touched it.”
“So you went to the mansion in Kent,” Val murmurs.
“Right. So I went to the mansion, and I looked through my great-aunt’s papers, but there wasn’t a lot there, just some funny books of mysticism and stuff.” Nora raises her eyebrows at Val. “There was supposed to be a lot more, but I couldn’t think who might’ve taken it.”
“I can explain that now,” Val says. “Alden took quite a few of his mother’s belongings with him when he left.”
“Yeah.” Nora studies her hands. Val notices for the first time her fingernails are painted a bright metallic silver “Why do you call him Alden?”
“He prefers it,” Val says mildly.
Nora snorts softly. “Nice way of showing a bit of love for family.”
“Don’t be too hard on him,” Val says quietly. “He took his mother’s death hard.”
“Oooh, yeah, I can imagine his dark pain all these years later.” Nora shakes her head impatiently. “Never mind. No fair my taking out my sarcasm on you.”
“Thank you,” Val says wryly. “Now, you were saying…?”
“Right.” She leans back in her chair. “So I looked through Great-Aunt Mary’s stuff and didn’t find anything, so then I looked through the rest of the house, to see if Lord Kent had left any papers, and I found your contact info.” Nora grins another fierce little grin. “I’m telling you, that was exciting. More than anything else I’d gotten, and it was weird enough that I thought I’d risk making a fool of myself looking into it.” A shrug. “So I did, and here you are.”
Val blinks at this last. So I did really doesn’t seem sufficient to cover Nora’s evident hacking abilities. “How long did it take you to figure out the contact?” he asks finally.
Nora tilts her head. “My birthday was mid-September. That’s… two months? About. Yeah. Maybe a bit less. That’s working every day, mind you. I’m guessing that code was about thirty years old?”
“Almost exactly.”
She looks smug. “I guess I did pretty hot, then.”
“Rather,” Val says dryly, and has a sudden horrible idea. “Nora, I hope you would excuse me for a moment? I’d like the loo.”
“Just down the hall,” Nora says, pointing vaguely.
“Thank you.” Val goes where indicated, then sits down on the closed toilet lid and, feeling amusingly adolescent, gets out his handheld and types Mel, dearest, Alden’s eighteen-year-old cousin hacked a thirty-year-old contact code in less than two months. What the hell am I supposed to do with her?
Hire her is Meligot’s answer, almost immediate. Val smirks.
Alden will kill us he types back, and decides that Nora will probably give him a funny look if he comes back without flushing the toilet, so he quickly gives the loo its intended use and wanders back in to Nora’s room.
“Miss Alden,” he says, “are you currently attending school?”
Nora blinks. “No,” she says. “Finished secondary last term, and I’m looking for a job right now.”
“Excellent. I’ve got one.”
She blinks again. “Aha.”
There’s that flat voice again, like she’s pretending not to be interested. Val smirks. “My top-secret agency is always more interested in hiring girls who can hack very old things than it is in brainwashing them,” he says.
“What sort of top-secret agency?” Nora asks cautiously.
“Interdimensional peacekeeping sort,” Val says, and launches into the quick spiel he’s given to at least a dozen potential agents in his time. There’s less disbelief in Nora’s face than there usually is in recruits, and about as much wild hope as is usual. By the time he’s finished and has given her the usual proof by way of handheld, Nora’s eyes are shining.
“Gimme a week,” she says, her words falling over each other. “I’ve gotta tell my folks I’ve got a job, and say goodbye to my friends, and get packed…”
“Completely understandable,” Val says, and shakes her hand warmly. “Shall I come back for you this time next week?”
“Sounds excellent.” She’s grinning all over her face. It makes her look rather younger.
“I shall,” Val says cheerfully, “see you then.”
And he transports right there in front of her, just for the split second to see the shocked delight on her face as he vanishes.
And ends up recruiting her.
*whistles innocently*
Meligot doesn’t give Val much time to snatch anything before he finds himself transported and standing on a neat doorstep somewhere in Bristol. Evidently she’s angry enough that she doesn’t care she’s sending him somewhere potentially dangerous.
Not that this part of Bristol looks terribly dangerous.
He knocks on the neat white door.
No answer.
Again.
Footsteps pattering downstairs from inside the house, and Val grins faintly, shifting so that he can lash out in a moment if anything untoward happens.
A girl opens the door.
Val doesn’t stare at her, because even years of retirement haven’t made his diplomatic skills all that rusty, but a single glance at her confirms she’s telling the truth. She’s nearly as tall as Val; she has thick dark hair and a stubborn chin, and she holds herself in the same alert, defiant way that Alden had even as a teenager. He recognises these things, though the girl also has friendly hazel eyes and a slightly snub nose. She’s wearing darkly brilliant red lipstick and a slightly puzzled expression.
“Yeah?”
“Afternoon,” Val says (at a guess; it could just as well be midmorning here). “I’m Val Espen from the top-secret agency whose system you managed to hack into.”
The girl’s chin goes rather stubborn. “How’d you get my address?”
“Advanced tracking device,” Val says. “Hell if I understand it; I’m not in the technological sector. I’m damage control.”
“Going to brainwash me?” Her voice is entirely flat.
“Lord, I hope not.” Val offers a smile. “I should like to come in for a cup of tea and a look at your computer, though, if you please, Miss Alden.”
“Nora,” she corrects, and steps back from the doorway. “By the way,” she adds sweetly as Val steps inside, “if you’re actually a stalker, I’ve been taking karate since I was nine.”
“Duly noted, Nora,” Val says courteously. “However, I am far more interested in drinking tea and exchanging explanations than in kidnapping.”
Nora nods. “Soft drinks good enough? I’m pants at tea.”
“Shall suffice,” Val returns magnanimously, and follows his host up the stairs. “Incidentally, if you’re still considering your kung-fu-”
“Karate.”
“-Yes, that-if you’re still considering it, I can show you my card. Quite above board.”
Nora comes to a halt in the upstairs corridor and holds out a hand. “Let’s see it, then.”
Val hands it over, and she studies it for a long moment. Her eyebrows arch delicately. “They,” she says flatly, and looks up. “Cute.”
Val has spent enough time with Alden to recognise sarcasm covering real amusement in this girl’s voice.
“Yes, isn’t it,” he says cheerfully.
“Well.” Nora hands the card back. “Here’s my room, anyway.”
It looks, unsurprisingly, like a teenager’s room. There are piles of clothes and comic books on the floor, a few band posters and a giant map of Middle Earth on the walls, a tall bookcase full of beat-up old paperbacks, a corkboard pinned with bright pictures of teenagers-Nora’s friends, Val supposes-and a desk upon which sits a sleek desk lamp and a sleeker laptop.
“So,” Val says, perching on Nora’s black-and-white checkered quilt, “let’s see those instructions of mine.”
Nora nods, sitting down at her desk, and plucks a yellowing paper off the corkboard. She hands it to Val.
He stares at it. Instructions thirty years out of date, in faded pen, in horrible scribbling handwriting. Given a week and extensive search of his memory, Val might be able to hack it. “My god,” he murmurs in amazement. “Al-Nora, how did you do this?”
She crosses her arms. “It wasn’t easy.”
“I imagine not!” He regards her in fascination for a moment. “Care to explain how you managed to come across this? As I recall, I left it in Kent.”
Nora laces her fingers together. “First tell me what you know of family history, if you know my cousin.”
“I only know what Alden’s told me,” Val says quietly, “and that’s precious little. His mother died when he was fifteen; I recruited him for THEY the next year. This note-” he holds it up-“was contact instructions we’re required to leave with the erstwhile guardians of all our underage recruits. That’s all I know.”
Nora nods slowly, and Val can see she suspects otherwise. Still, she says, “That explains some things,” and leans back in her chair. “Okay. My dad used to tell me stories about my Great-Aunt Mary and how she married Lord Kent, and how right afterwards she died, my dad’s cousin John vanished-that’s where you come in, I guess-and about a year later his Lordship died. It all seemed pretty odd to me, and I wanted to know what’d happened-but dad wasn’t interested in looking.” She shrugs.
“Why look now?” Val prompts quietly after a moment.
“I turned eighteen,” Nora says with a fierce little grin. “That gives me legal grounds for the Alden part of the Kent estate; some was left to us, but my dad never touched it.”
“So you went to the mansion in Kent,” Val murmurs.
“Right. So I went to the mansion, and I looked through my great-aunt’s papers, but there wasn’t a lot there, just some funny books of mysticism and stuff.” Nora raises her eyebrows at Val. “There was supposed to be a lot more, but I couldn’t think who might’ve taken it.”
“I can explain that now,” Val says. “Alden took quite a few of his mother’s belongings with him when he left.”
“Yeah.” Nora studies her hands. Val notices for the first time her fingernails are painted a bright metallic silver “Why do you call him Alden?”
“He prefers it,” Val says mildly.
Nora snorts softly. “Nice way of showing a bit of love for family.”
“Don’t be too hard on him,” Val says quietly. “He took his mother’s death hard.”
“Oooh, yeah, I can imagine his dark pain all these years later.” Nora shakes her head impatiently. “Never mind. No fair my taking out my sarcasm on you.”
“Thank you,” Val says wryly. “Now, you were saying…?”
“Right.” She leans back in her chair. “So I looked through Great-Aunt Mary’s stuff and didn’t find anything, so then I looked through the rest of the house, to see if Lord Kent had left any papers, and I found your contact info.” Nora grins another fierce little grin. “I’m telling you, that was exciting. More than anything else I’d gotten, and it was weird enough that I thought I’d risk making a fool of myself looking into it.” A shrug. “So I did, and here you are.”
Val blinks at this last. So I did really doesn’t seem sufficient to cover Nora’s evident hacking abilities. “How long did it take you to figure out the contact?” he asks finally.
Nora tilts her head. “My birthday was mid-September. That’s… two months? About. Yeah. Maybe a bit less. That’s working every day, mind you. I’m guessing that code was about thirty years old?”
“Almost exactly.”
She looks smug. “I guess I did pretty hot, then.”
“Rather,” Val says dryly, and has a sudden horrible idea. “Nora, I hope you would excuse me for a moment? I’d like the loo.”
“Just down the hall,” Nora says, pointing vaguely.
“Thank you.” Val goes where indicated, then sits down on the closed toilet lid and, feeling amusingly adolescent, gets out his handheld and types Mel, dearest, Alden’s eighteen-year-old cousin hacked a thirty-year-old contact code in less than two months. What the hell am I supposed to do with her?
Hire her is Meligot’s answer, almost immediate. Val smirks.
Alden will kill us he types back, and decides that Nora will probably give him a funny look if he comes back without flushing the toilet, so he quickly gives the loo its intended use and wanders back in to Nora’s room.
“Miss Alden,” he says, “are you currently attending school?”
Nora blinks. “No,” she says. “Finished secondary last term, and I’m looking for a job right now.”
“Excellent. I’ve got one.”
She blinks again. “Aha.”
There’s that flat voice again, like she’s pretending not to be interested. Val smirks. “My top-secret agency is always more interested in hiring girls who can hack very old things than it is in brainwashing them,” he says.
“What sort of top-secret agency?” Nora asks cautiously.
“Interdimensional peacekeeping sort,” Val says, and launches into the quick spiel he’s given to at least a dozen potential agents in his time. There’s less disbelief in Nora’s face than there usually is in recruits, and about as much wild hope as is usual. By the time he’s finished and has given her the usual proof by way of handheld, Nora’s eyes are shining.
“Gimme a week,” she says, her words falling over each other. “I’ve gotta tell my folks I’ve got a job, and say goodbye to my friends, and get packed…”
“Completely understandable,” Val says, and shakes her hand warmly. “Shall I come back for you this time next week?”
“Sounds excellent.” She’s grinning all over her face. It makes her look rather younger.
“I shall,” Val says cheerfully, “see you then.”
And he transports right there in front of her, just for the split second to see the shocked delight on her face as he vanishes.