a city and a mint who sleep very little between them

[self_composed]

Bella bikes to the airport on Friday. She gets a little reading done on her flight, then sleeps-on-purpose through the remainder of the trip, waking up precisely when the plane touches down. One nice bonus that she didn't even explicitly build into the power is that she can sleep at will in virtually any position; she doesn't have to get comfy if that's not convenient.

She steps off the plane, backpack full of her things over her shoulders, and stalks into the halls of LaGuardia, eyes peeled for Libby.

Comments

[self_composed]

"What makes you think I'm friends with the other mint?"

[prima_sequentem]

"The fact that you toured Europe together is a big clue."

[self_composed]

"Maybe they're stalking me."

[prima_sequentem]

"If so, they're doing a much better job of it than I am. I think I'm jealous."

[self_composed]

"Hey, I didn't know Bridget was a spy until you had her tell me. I'm clearly not the world's best stalker-detector."

[prima_sequentem]

"Bridget has the major advantage of not actually being the stalking type," says Libby. "If I wanted to send a professional spy after you, there were candidates available. But since I did hope you'd end up on friendly terms, it seemed like a good idea to send someone who would either make friends or give up."

[self_composed]

"I do like Bridget, even though I was mad at her for the spying. She was a good pick," Bella says.

[prima_sequentem]

"Glad to hear it," she says. "I always like it when my guesses turn out right."

[self_composed]

"If you don't even have enough fine detail to tell whether me or the other mint was first, how did you narrow it down enough to find out that I was one of the two?"

[prima_sequentem]

"You were the only person from Forks who went to Stanford this year."

[self_composed]

"So you have, what, a map with pushpins on it that skate around?"

[prima_sequentem]

She smiles slightly.

"Good guess."

[self_composed]

"And you didn't make these pushpins have post-it notes with names sprout from them - or you couldn't fit that into the size coin you used."

[prima_sequentem]

"Or something."

[self_composed]

"Or it doesn't work on me," Bella acknowledges.

[prima_sequentem]

"Or something," she repeats, but she's smiling again.

[self_composed]

Bella smiles. "I like it when spying does not work on me."

[prima_sequentem]

"I can tell," says Libby.

[self_composed]

Bella laughs. "And you don't know who my stalker-or-friend-or-whoever is either, so it doesn't work on them either. So I guess the answer to the question about how your mint finder works is not all that well, if it fails on names for forty percent of mints it can even find."

[prima_sequentem]

"Feel free to make a better one."

[self_composed]

"Might, but. It hasn't been a priority so far," Bella says.

[prima_sequentem]

"Oh, right," she says. "You're not worried about strange mints destroying the world. Not even the sinister ones."

[self_composed]

"I'm not completely insensate to the risk, but have not yet decided to appoint myself Chief of the Secret Police."

[prima_sequentem]

"Good to know."

[self_composed]

"Do you have any plans for the world besides not-blowing-it-up-or-letting-anyone-else-do-so?" Bella asks.