i'm just that fascinating i guess

[self_composed]

The first day Bella spends out and about with her new who's-watching-me powers, she is rather alarmed.

Maybe she's just mistaken about how much time people spend looking at reasonably pretty eighteen-year-old girls. She kills a pentagon to try it on a nearby control - who's looking at that girl over there?

Fewer people. Fewer people are looking at that random girl, and less intently. They're looking at her familiarly - they know her - or casually - they're checking her out.

[I have a spy problem,] Bella says. She makes a faintly exaggerated show of snapping her fingers in frustration and turning around. She's going back to her room to get a mirror and bobby pins and barettes, so she can spy back on the pretense of checking her hair, without making it overwhelmingly obvious that she knows what's going on.

Comments

[self_composed]

"I thought you said she wanted to see if I was recruitable," Bella says, staccato. "If - I don't know, the NSA, thought that I had good grades and maybe I would be useful to them and they decided to tap my phone in order to find out if I have problematic personal associations without telling me any of this was going on? That'd also be spying."

[regularsized]

"It's a secret organization," says Bridget. "With very few exceptions, nobody gets to hear it exists until we're already pretty sure they'd want to join. You're one of those exceptions now, apparently; you weren't one a month ago. So, yes, seeing if you're recruitable was a prerequisite to trying to recruit you."

[self_composed]

"The NSA was classifed for a long time after its original creation too. What's your point?"

[regularsized]

"I'm pretty sure my point is that I wasn't spying on you," Bridget says patiently.

[self_composed]

"Yes, but I do not agree," Bella says, just as patiently.

[regularsized]

"Then you have a pretty weird definition of spying."

[self_composed]

"So weird, right, it doesn't involve exceptions for secret organizations," Bella says, rolling her eyes. "But this is beside the point. Libby wants me to do her unspecified favors in exchange for unspecified favors? Specification seems called for."

[regularsized]

"I doubt Libby is ever going to ask you for anything after a disaster like this," says Bridget. "And I genuinely have no idea now what your definition of spying is."

[self_composed]

"It's like gossip, except for a sinister organization instead of a mere social group," Bella says. "Perhaps this straddles the line. Is the disaster the thing that you don't know any details about that caused her to tell you to come clean, or the fact that I think I have been spied on? Because the fact that Libby mishandled me once" (and Lazarus once, but Bridget doesn't know about that, does she?) "doesn't necessarily mean we can't work together - I just would need to know more."

[regularsized]

"The disaster I'm thinking of is this conversation, yes," Bridget says dryly.

[self_composed]

"I'm deeply curious about how you thought I'd react," says Bella.

[regularsized]

"The fact that I was expecting a much bigger disaster doesn't make this not one," says Bridget.

[self_composed]

Bella snorts. "What'd you think I was going to do?"

[regularsized]

"I have no idea."

[self_composed]

"Now I'm imagining you telling Libby 'she's not gonna like it, boss' in a stereotypical Mafia accent," Bella snorts. "Well. I don't like it. I am not saying 'oh, that's fine, I completely understand that you chose to befriend me under false pretenses because a sinister' - hey, how sure are you she didn't send the mugger-creep-person?" Bella says suddenly. "To try to draw me out? I don't think you were expecting him, or you're a hell of an actress, but he did shoot you and only you."

[And,] Bella adds to her brainphone conference call, [Chris's niece Libby runs the sinister organization, or at least has Bridget as a direct report and keeps mum about upper levels.]

[nonbird]

[Augh,] contributes Lazarus, in a bizarrely calm tone.

[regularsized]

"I'd accuse you of sending that guy before I'd accuse Libby," says Bridget. "Things like that guy are the kind of thing Libby protects people like me against."

[self_composed]

"I may be paranoid, but I didn't expect you to be indestructible, and even after learning you were indestructible I did not expect you to be a spy," Bella says. "To my chagrin, I have been operating under the assumption that there was nothing more of significance to you that might need drawing out. Why would I have sent a mugger-creep even if I had the wherewithal to command mugger-creeps? And if she's looking out for you against mugger-creeps why did a mugger-creep shoot you?"

[regularsized]

"Because she has other things on her mind," says Bridget. "If she had reason to believe I was especially likely to get mugged on some particular day, and she had the resources to prevent it, she would, but she hasn't assigned me a bodyguard or anything."

[self_composed]

"Or offered you storebought magic for the purpose."

[regularsized]

"Or whatever," says Bridget. "I don't really want any more magic. I'm magic enough already."

[self_composed]

"Why does Libby think I'm... interesting?" Bella says. Instead of "worth spying on".

[regularsized]

"I know she expected you to have coin powers," she says. "I don't know why. But coin powers are plenty interesting enough by themselves."

[self_composed]

"Has she had you... befriend... people with coin powers before?"

[regularsized]

"Nope," says Bridget.