Fiiiiiiiic.
Fic: Columns and Rows
Fandoms: The Bletchley Circle/Marvel Cinematic Universe
Rating: PG
Words: 591
Warnings: None.
Notes: Beta-ed by my Eric. Follow-up to Rows and Columns.
Summary: Amber: it means get ready. Susan wonders what Natasha has been sent to make her get ready for.
"She's a Commie, of course," says Millie, with her own brand of lightning-quick assurance which Susan instantly shushes. "Well, Russian, anyway. Moscow, I should think."
So Millie hears it too, the dry song of the Eastern Bloc behind the soft all-American purr of Miss Rushman's voice and the click-clack of her Dior heels. Susan wonders what she makes of it, of all this. Of leaving home, of leaving the children (of course, Millie has no children; she wonders if she minds, and realises she really should know), to run into the wind with a woman with amber-danger curls, on the promise of a puzzle.
Amber, Susan thinks. At the traffic lights, it means get ready. Ready? Ready for what?
She - Miss Rushman, or whatever her real name is under the perfect Max Factor mask - warned there would be danger, standing under Susan's porch in tacky-grey autumn damp. But only a very little danger, she had added, voice very mild. You'll be right out of it. She had emphasised the you, just gently, drawing the lightest of spiders-web lines between Susan and herself. Amber, Susan thinks again, sounding foolish to herself even in the privacy of her own head. Dangerous as a hornet's stripes. Is Miss Rushman dangerous? She thinks that perhaps she is; she reminds her of some of the other SoE women, the ones Bletchley almost never saw, flitting between shadows with chameleon faces and gun-barrel eyes, who clenched their fists the way other women blew kisses. Susan wonders what becomes of such soldier-women, left without a war -- not that she could ever have been that kind of woman. Could Millie? Perhaps. Millie has always been x, the unknown quantity: flexible, the possibility in every equation.
Still. Absurd to think like this, to follow word-patterns and hunt for phantom connections like a poet. (In any invasion, she recalls, they shoot the poets first. Who said that? Churchill? Surely not.) Useless to attempt an analysis on so little data. Data, data, the war-cry of Bletchley Park. We are nothing without data!
And now, with the war over and all her data inconsequential. Is she doomed to be nothing again?
The airship, when the smart black car takes them to it, is vast and bullet-grey with a distinctive black-eagle ensignia embellished on its rump.
"I told you she was a Communist!" crows Millie in a triumphant sibilance, and finally Miss Rushman turns in the driver's seat to look at them directly for the first time since that conversation on Susan's doorstep.
"I'm not a Communist," she informs them, sounding - what? Amused? Like a cat watching a mouse, perhaps. "But yes, I'm Russian. Or I used to be."
"I didn't say Communist was a bad thing," Millie says, definitely amused - and possibly flirtatious - but then she is x, inscrutable. All Susan can think of is her data, to have some, however meagre, is a shocking relief. After all, they never did have all the data, and always managed, even when there were more gaps than the Times crossword puzzle. Now, perhaps, she can begin to hypothesise, sketch out lines of enquiry, begin to understand.
Amber; she thinks again: the thought is persistent as drizzle, clicking over like a difference engine; that means get ready Get ready? Ready for what?
Fandoms: The Bletchley Circle/Marvel Cinematic Universe
Rating: PG
Words: 591
Warnings: None.
Notes: Beta-ed by my Eric. Follow-up to Rows and Columns.
Summary: Amber: it means get ready. Susan wonders what Natasha has been sent to make her get ready for.
"She's a Commie, of course," says Millie, with her own brand of lightning-quick assurance which Susan instantly shushes. "Well, Russian, anyway. Moscow, I should think."
So Millie hears it too, the dry song of the Eastern Bloc behind the soft all-American purr of Miss Rushman's voice and the click-clack of her Dior heels. Susan wonders what she makes of it, of all this. Of leaving home, of leaving the children (of course, Millie has no children; she wonders if she minds, and realises she really should know), to run into the wind with a woman with amber-danger curls, on the promise of a puzzle.
Amber, Susan thinks. At the traffic lights, it means get ready. Ready? Ready for what?
She - Miss Rushman, or whatever her real name is under the perfect Max Factor mask - warned there would be danger, standing under Susan's porch in tacky-grey autumn damp. But only a very little danger, she had added, voice very mild. You'll be right out of it. She had emphasised the you, just gently, drawing the lightest of spiders-web lines between Susan and herself. Amber, Susan thinks again, sounding foolish to herself even in the privacy of her own head. Dangerous as a hornet's stripes. Is Miss Rushman dangerous? She thinks that perhaps she is; she reminds her of some of the other SoE women, the ones Bletchley almost never saw, flitting between shadows with chameleon faces and gun-barrel eyes, who clenched their fists the way other women blew kisses. Susan wonders what becomes of such soldier-women, left without a war -- not that she could ever have been that kind of woman. Could Millie? Perhaps. Millie has always been x, the unknown quantity: flexible, the possibility in every equation.
Still. Absurd to think like this, to follow word-patterns and hunt for phantom connections like a poet. (In any invasion, she recalls, they shoot the poets first. Who said that? Churchill? Surely not.) Useless to attempt an analysis on so little data. Data, data, the war-cry of Bletchley Park. We are nothing without data!
And now, with the war over and all her data inconsequential. Is she doomed to be nothing again?
The airship, when the smart black car takes them to it, is vast and bullet-grey with a distinctive black-eagle ensignia embellished on its rump.
"I told you she was a Communist!" crows Millie in a triumphant sibilance, and finally Miss Rushman turns in the driver's seat to look at them directly for the first time since that conversation on Susan's doorstep.
"I'm not a Communist," she informs them, sounding - what? Amused? Like a cat watching a mouse, perhaps. "But yes, I'm Russian. Or I used to be."
"I didn't say Communist was a bad thing," Millie says, definitely amused - and possibly flirtatious - but then she is x, inscrutable. All Susan can think of is her data, to have some, however meagre, is a shocking relief. After all, they never did have all the data, and always managed, even when there were more gaps than the Times crossword puzzle. Now, perhaps, she can begin to hypothesise, sketch out lines of enquiry, begin to understand.
Amber; she thinks again: the thought is persistent as drizzle, clicking over like a difference engine; that means get ready Get ready? Ready for what?