trade my soul for a wish

[from_scratch]

This is a successor to "call me maybe", which is getting crowded.

Cam is dipping a grilled cheese sandwich into a bowl of tomato soup when he feels the summons. He goes ahead and grabs it. Doesn't even drop the sandwich.


with Mark (kappa)

with Adanya (Aestrix)

with Sable (kappa)

with Ari (andaisq)

with Metella (kappa)

with Miles (kappa)

with Isabella (Eva)

with Steel (Rockeye)

with Daphne (Maggie)

with Edie (Maggie)

Comments

[from_scratch]

"Very. If the revelation is too shocking I can wander off and leave you be, although I would like a way to look you up in case I ever wish to be sent home."

[unmarred]

"Nah," he says. "There's room for exceptions. And if we became separated somehow, the fastest way to look me up would probably be to travel to Barrayar, convince my brother you urgently needed to talk to me, and get him to find me for you. Which could take up to several months, depending where each of us is at the time and how fast you convince Miles."

[from_scratch]

"You're not in even remotely close touch with your brother and he's still the fastest way to find you?"

[unmarred]

"He has access to the ImpSec reports. It's not fast but it beats the hell out of wandering the wormhole nexus trying to find me by yourself, unless you have more magic you haven't told me about."

[from_scratch]

"I'd have access to the ImpSec reports, too, probably, if I knew just a tiny bit more about how they're organized. But I couldn't necessarily do much with them."

[unmarred]

"And you couldn't pass the word down the line for the closest agent to try to get in touch with me. Well, you could if you were very clever and didn't mind falsifying official communications. Don't falsify official communications, please. It'd be more of a headache than I want to give 'em."

[from_scratch]

"Noted."

[unmarred]

"Mm... this'll work," he says, of a building they are approaching. "Please don't talk while I'm getting a room. I don't want them hearing anything interesting."

In they go. Mark exchanges an absolute minimum of words with the receptionist, obtains a keycard, and leads Cam into the lift tube and up.

It seems like a very nice hotel, much nicer than the intelligence agent's.

[from_scratch]

"Swanky," comments Cam in the lift tube. "So what is it that you do besides leave little mysteries for your pursuers?"

[unmarred]

"Not a whole lot."

[from_scratch]

"Doodling on the floor and such takes up most of your time?"

[unmarred]

"By time the thing I do most is probably read."

[from_scratch]

"Reading's a lot less depressing than you're making it sound, in my experience."

[unmarred]

"It's not the reading that's depressing."

[from_scratch]

"You're being cryptic," Cam observes.

[unmarred]

"Am I?"

He alights from the lift tube and proceeds down the corridor.

[from_scratch]

"No, I said that at total random, it's a tic I have."

[unmarred]

"I have a poorly calibrated sense of what counts as cryptic."

[from_scratch]

"Grand. This will be fun."

[unmarred]

"Sorry."

[from_scratch]

"Eh, if you don't want to be cryptic then accidental crypticism just means a few extra layers of increasingly precise question-asking before I learn things. If you wanted to be cryptic I'd probably flip you off and wander around to eavesdrop and browse bookstores until I knew what I wanted to do next."

[unmarred]

"It's possible there are things I won't want to tell you even once I'm made aware that you don't know them and would like to. But I don't expect it to come up all that often."

And here is the room. It's medium-sized and cozy and has a little sitting area with a couple of armchairs and a round table. Mark sits.

"And now I'm close to certain that no one knows we're here or could listen in if they did."

[from_scratch]

"Cool. So pretend that I'm from - mm, history's obviously diverged considerably - pretend I am from 1990, and give me the executive summary of things that have happened as pertinent to the modern-day layout of this-and-that?"

[unmarred]

Mark laughs.

[from_scratch]

"And of course I expect wordcount-conscious emphasis on the important parts. I'm immortal, not patient."