fandomtownies | Trooper Station; Monday [ 01/19 ].

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Trooper Station; Monday [ 01/19 ].

There had been a great many strange calls received at the station that weekend; Daisy had been entering them into the computer for records' sake before going through and trying to encrypt where they had come from. It was the damnedest thing, really. She'd known by now that some calls were being redirected all day yesterday, which would explain a lot of the ones they received that would have constituted as pranks and therefor she wanted to track because that was illegal, but she discovered that she'd never seen phone calls so incredibly impossible to trace. Damnedest thing, and the attempts to break the code had her practically riveted to her computer most of her shift, even if, at this point, if she broke it, it wouldn't mean much.

[[ open station is open! ]]

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After visiting the mayor, Sarah stopped by the trooper station carrying a little bag. If it had taken the spy until the radio show to realize her phone was screwed up, she could only imagine how hard it was on the rest of the town, and whole-town problems tended to get thrown at the police.

She also wanted to know if Daisy had figured out what had caused it.

"Hey, Daisy," she greeted. "I got some muffins. I figured today might be a long day for you."

"Phone calls," Daisy said, by way of greeting, shaking her head without even taking her eyes from the computer. Her fingers barely ceased moving over her keyboard. "They're probably the easiest things in the world to trace, right? I've never seen phone calls scrambled like this before in my life!"

You know, all eight years of experience.

Also?

"Ooh, muffins." She did stop then, blinking from the computer world to the real word and giving Sarah a smile. "Hi."

"I could tell where they were coming from, but not where they were supposed to end up," Sarah said, smiling a little herself. "And I'm still not certain a few of mine weren't meant for me."

Though she had stopped packing for the moment. she leaned closer to the computer screen, not quite reading over Daisy's shoulder but implicitly asking permission to do so.

"Hi."

Daisy shifted back in her chair a little, to let Sarah see, though she was slightly reluctant for the break. She knew it would be good for her, though, because she was starting to see only in code. Her eyes blinked a few times for good measure to better focus on things that didn't include a computer screen.

"I'm just trying not to think of where some of mine wound up," she said. Some of those heard by unexpected persons...

Well, it could go either way, depending on the recipient.

"How's it going?"

Sarah glanced at the screen. "That's pretty much what my program told me based on my incoming calls," she told Daisy quickly. "I sent the files to Langley but they never get much from island data. I think they think I'm messing with them."

She shrugged a little. "Not too bad, considering. I was a little stressed out when I thought Mayor Summers wanted to throw me in the ocean, but I guess that's par for the course."

"I just find it fascinating," admitted Daisy. "I've never seen encryption like this before..."

She shook her head, forcing herself to stop paying attention to the computer and start paying attention to Sarah instead. She finally grabbed one of those muffins to help her do just that. "Why would he want to throw you in the ocean?"

"I've gotten some interesting threats in my life," Sarah said casually. "I tend to assume they're serious until I know otherwise. I tried to get you down to the station to check on it, but who knows where that message went."

"I'll take it you didn't exactly receive my messages, either," Daisy noted, which didn't worry her at all, although it did make her wonder who she ended up accusing of having too skinny of a white bum.

Sarah shook her head. "I got the mayor, a student offering athletic sex, a couple that just seemed like prank calls, and Loki being really mad at someone who I'm going to hope wasn't really me."

Something occurred to her.

"Oh, god, and I tried to call him back to swear at him and tell him I was breaking my lease..."

Daisy's eyes widened just slightly over an arched eyebrow. "Do you want to break your lease?"

"I was serious," Sarah explained, with a little shrug. "I got a call from some kid leaving a really bad fake spy message, like, 'the raven lands at midnight' kind of stuff. Figured he might have put her up to it. And then I got the call from him and ..." she ran a hair through her hair. "I think I need to actually talk to him face-to-face before I call the movers."

Daisy frowned a little, thinking that over. It might have sounded like the sort of thing Loki might have done, if she wasn't entirely convinced that he was actually utterly and completely trustworthy. "Talking's good," she said, nodding firmly. "Especially if it was just a result of the phones acting all funny. I don't think he'd do something like that. Not unless provoked..."

Which just made her think that Sarah had mentioned receiving a call of him seeming rather upset, and...

She shook her head. "Talking's good," she repeated, "until more of this phone stuff settles over."

Sarah wasn't convinced on the trustworthy bit, was the thing. Had she provoked him? Not intentionally, but she was never sure where that line was.

"I think I'm done with phones except my secure line for a few days," she said, to put an end to it either way. "And, hey, you said you were trying to reach me?"

"Oh, well," Daisy shrugged. "Nothing important. One was me trying to get you to eat some of that food from when I made all of that because of the oven. The other I'm...not sure is such a good idea at the moment until things brush over a bit."

Sarah had a guess what the other thing was. "Maybe not," she said slowly. "But I'd be happy to come over some night and eat your food. I can bring wine?"

"Would I ever refuse wine?" Daisy asked with a small smile.

"I've never known you to," Sarah laughed. "Maybe if I found some really bad wine."

"How's Wednesday after I close the shop?"

Not even bad wine...Of course, Daisy probably wouldn't know the difference between bad and good when it came to wine. She took a second to think on it before nodding. "Wednesday works nicely."

"I'll see you then," Sarah said, and started to leave before hesitating. "Oh, hey, if you want me to pass anything up to the CIA, let me know. It would probably just confuse them, but can't hurt to try."

"What, the coding?"

Sarah nodded. "Unless you have audio files of all the calls from the system, but that's warrant territory. And past my jurisdiction anyhow. Just ... wanted to see if I could maybe help."

Daisy shook her head, waving a hand. "Wouldn't be much point. I'm mostly trying to break it for fun. It's pretty obvious that there was simply something interfering with the signals yesterday, and nothing malignant."

There was a pause.

"We're not that bored here."

Said she who arrested a horsie.

"I might be," Sarah volunteered. "But no, I didn't think it was intentional. It feels more like another piece of Fandom strange."

"Exactly. And I'm sure the CIA would just love us if we sent something everytime something happened. Well, they'd love you, anyway."

"Either that, or they'd send me to talk to a nice doctor who would send me off to a nice hospital where I could get some rest," Sarah laughed.

"Oooh!" Daisy chuckled. "A free holiday!"

"Go new places, meet new people..." Sarah rubbed her neck, thinking about it. "And I could talk about being a spy all I wanted, since no one would believe me."

"You want I should email some of this to you, then? And you can send it on up?"

"You know, on second thought I think I'll leave this one to you," Sarah decided. "Tempting as it all is."

[OOC: THANK YOU. I was just thinking about too many other things.]

Daisy grinned slightly. "If I'm sending it to anyone," she decided, "it would be my pop back in London. If he couldn't crack this stuff, I don't think anyone could."

That was so sweet and naive Sarah felt a completely inappropriate desire to pat Daisy on the head. Daisy's dad might be an incredible codebreaker, but, well, he wasn't CIA or even MI-6.

"Hey, maybe you should," she tried. "He might be less likely to decide you were messing with him than anyone else."

No, Mr. Day would be far more likely to ask if Daisy was going to quit all that silly police nonsense yet, and then tell her to come back when her answer was yes instead of no. Still, Daisy grinned. "Yeah," she said, "they're a little more likely to realize that, when I say something, it's probably true no matter how ridiculous by now."

Ray was remarkably less upbeat. In fact, rather than work, he was kinda draped over his desk in a listless way, banging his forehead off it. Rhythmically. "Idiot," he muttered. "Idiot."

Daisy peered over from her computer enough to quirk an eyebrow at Ray. She, of course, wouldn't ask; it would just be a breach of office politics. But she would at least offer, "Kowalski? You want me to get you anything? Coffee? Aspirin? Pillow?" She was concerned for his forehead...

"No, thanks," he muttered, finally pulling his head the hell away from the desk. "I'm, uh, fine." Except for the rhythmic idiot, idiot, idiot (http://headkickpoet.livejournal.com/561.html?thread=27697#t27697) that was still pounding into his brain, but no aspirin would work on that one. "Um... stoves, Day?"

Hey, look. Diversion.

Because Ray would object to talking about his problems. Yep, he would. Watch him subtly intuit that he didn't want to talk about it. Yep.

Daisy blinked, a bit owlishly, back.

"...stoves, Kowalski?"

She was feeling, after the weekend, there could be a lot of meaning to stoves.

"Stoves. Um, I mean, ovens. You called." He waved one of his hands vaguely to point that out. "I don't remember ovens."

Ahhh. Daisy nodded. "Ovens," she said. "So that's where that call wound up."

Which meant that Loki hadn't a clue that there was plotting afoot, which was probably for the best, if what Sarah'd said about his mood was any indication.

"What, you call me about ovens, you don't remember what it's about?" he asked. Yeah, he hadn't twigged onto the whole... well, whatever the hell was up with the phones yesterday.

"Phones were acting funny yesterday, Kowalski," Daisy informed him, a little surprised he hadn't picked up on it. "Calls misdirected all over the place. That one was supposed to go to my landlord."

Thank goodness it was that call that Ray got.

Huh.

Wait.

"...That work for everyone?" He was not sounding perky. He was way too manly for perky.

Daisy really needed to take a moment to consider how best to answer it. There were a few decent answers, a lot of really bad ones, but figuring out the best one took a few ticks on the clock.

"Probably not," she admitted, but with a faint, almost nudging sort of smile. "He mostly sends Pepper over for stuff like that, doesn't he?"

"Pepper?"

Ray blinked at the sudden change in subject. Kinda.

"Um. She left me a message. I got very--" Depressed. "Confused."

Daisy tilted her head a bit, trying to get a reading.

"Funny phones, Kowalski," she reminded him. "It might have been a mix up. Intended for someone else. In fact, most likely, from what I'm hearing and getting from my encryption, if she had intended to call you, you're probably the last person she would have left a message for."

"I should probably check that," he muttered. It was kinda clashing with his deep-rooted belief no pretty, smart woman would ever stick with him. "You know. Maybe visit. Phones."

"I might stick with the visits, if I were you," suggested Daisy, trying not to grin. Or wink. Or any such other behavior she shouldn't bring into the workplace. She couldn't help wanting, too, though. It was kind of cute.

"After last week," Ray announced, "I am gonna throw every single one of them out the window and never look back."

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Trooper Station; Monday [ 01/19 ].

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