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

[regularsized]

"Very and also very," says Bridget. "I know how I ended up in that lab. Libby isn't old enough to have built that mess from scratch. And I've turned her down before when she asked me for something. She argues; she doesn't threaten."

[self_composed]

"Fair enough. What sort of disaster would have her reveal your... spyingness?"

[regularsized]

"She didn't say, which suggests to me that it's an ongoing emergency."

[self_composed]

"Did you ask? Do you know anything about why she wanted me spied on in the first place?"

[regularsized]

"I generally don't ask," says Bridget. "And I'm pretty sure she tries to recruit every recruitable magical person she can find, just because having us on her side is preferable to the other option. But I still don't actually know that you're magical. Also, spying implies I was reporting on you in some way, which I haven't been unless you count a few iterations of 'have you broken it to her yet?' and one of 'is she dead?' And no, I didn't ask what that one was about, either."

[self_composed]

"...When did she inquire if I was dead?" Bella asks.

[regularsized]

"Why do you ask?"

[self_composed]

"Because I want to know? I don't think I've spent any time looking dead recently."

[regularsized]

"Sometime in the last month. I didn't exactly mark it down on my calendar."

[self_composed]

"I don't suppose you have an email record of it?"

[regularsized]

"It wasn't an email."

[self_composed]

"Mm." Argh, why doesn't everyone have an eidetic memory? "How long have you been in this vaguely sinister organization?"

[regularsized]

"Do you mean, how long have I been friends with the person who rescued me from a very unpleasant place? A few years."

[self_composed]

"How big is it? The vaguely sinister organization? Or I suppose I could ask how many friends Libby has, but perhaps she does not... employ... all of her friends in this way."

[regularsized]

"Why do you keep calling it a vaguely sinister organization?"

[self_composed]

"It sent someone to spy on me?" Bella suggests. "Are there non-sinister reasons to spy on college freshmen? You could've walked up to me and said 'Hi! Do you believe in magic?' and laughed at me when I lied."

[regularsized]

"We really don't like to ask just anybody if they believe in magic," says Bridget. "There's always the chance we could've guessed wrong. And I don't think that telling Libby you're probably not dead qualifies as spying."

[self_composed]

"Maybe you weren't sending her detailed reports, but -" Bella's not going to reveal that she knows she was being otherwise stared at - "you set out to meet me because someone else took an interest in me without - I assume? - having ever met me in person. It's not like Libby decided to introduce us because she's pals with us both and thought we'd get along. How are you characterizing her motives as anything other than spying, even if it happens that the only question she asked you is whether I died?"

[regularsized]

"Because the motive she actually gave was that she wanted me to recruit you?"

[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."