Logs:Doppelcheck
| Doppelcheck | |
|---|---|
| Dramatis Personae | |
| In Absentia | 2024-11-16 "Hold the phone." (Just after talking with Ion & Jax.) |
| Location
An honest-to-God phone call | |
Br-r-r-ring. Okay, probably on Cerebro's end this call is received the same way any other call would be, but it is coming from a landline somewhere in the city rather than from Scott's cell. Not that this is definitely Scott, but how many people use this extension? Does it ring on the other end? Perhaps it would if Cerebro gave it time to, but as usual the call is answered almost instantaneously, by human phone-fumbling standards. "Wireless infrastructure is awesome and awful all at once," the sysadmin begins without preamble, "but there's nothing quite like the claustrophobic nostalgia of good ol' fashion twisted pair. Is it twisted pair, or are they faking it? I can't tell! It's like the bloody 1990s all over again." It's genuinely hard to tell whether his sarcasm is pleased or annoyed. "I assume you didn't call just to flex on me." This is mildly impatient, as if he weren't the one who delayed Scott explaining himself. "Hey, Cerebro, it's Scott." Probably Scott didn't need to say that. He does not sound impatient, just a little brusque, maybe a little tired. "Do you have surveillance in the stables from yesterday afternoon? Say, fourteen-hundred to seventeen-hundred. And am I in it?" "Nobody else even knows this extension, Chief." Cerebro says this with an air of magnanimous reassurance. "Surveillance -- who do you take me for, Big Brother?" He sounds only (maybe alarmingly) mildly outraged. "Of course not. I'll see if any security drones picked you up -- wait. Hold the phone. Hah!" His laughter is crisp, unmarred by the puff of organic breath into a microphone. "Don't you know where you were from fourteen-hundred to seventeen-hundred? "Yes," says Scott, "I was in town renting a yard waste dumpster. I think I may have been impersonated." The annoyance in his voice here is probably less about his impersonation than who he likely already suspects. "If that doesn't work, look for Jax, see if anybody was following him around." "I've got one shot of 'you' near the stables." Cerebro heaves a long-suffering sigh. "I can't show you the scare quotes around 'you', but the gait and everything is spot-on. And how should I know if you -- you were following him? I don't follow you around with drones." His annoyance is much louder than Scott's, but there a note of worry beneath his indignant huff. "I'm resetting the 'days since you people made me regret caring about privacy' count." "Hm." Perhaps this is not reassuring; perhaps neither is the silence that follows. When Scott speaks again he's abandoned this train of thought entirely -- "Can you tell the Professor I spoke with Jax, and we'll get it worked out? My phone is dead. I'll be back on campus --" pause, rustle, apparently (uncharacteristically) he must have no ETA, for he just concludes, "-- soon." The corresponding silence on Cerebro's end is eerie in its totality -- no rustling, no breathing, nothing. But the complete absence of snark from the "roger, wilco" that follows might arguably be more unsettling. "Are you -- do you suppose he's in danger? You could get a burner phone. Just in case. Lucien Tessier is a S.H.I.E.L.D. contractor, he probably has a drawer full of them." "I don't know," says Scott. "We'll get it worked out." Pause. "Do I need a burner?" he adds, "I have you." There's another silence, just a beat by human standards but for him it's a whole album. When he speaks again it's abrupt and agitated. "Yes! Yes you do! I That murderous blue bitch is out there, where I haven't got any drones and can't keep track of you only! What am I meant to do, make like Person of Interest and hack every camera from here to..." There's something speculative in this pause, somehow. "Damn your eyes, I will bloody well Postmates you a phone if you -- oh wait, Jax and Ryan live there, they've probably got a drawer full of them." This is met with a looong pause before -- half amused and half abashed -- "I'll ask Jax," says Scott. Then, click. | |
