“Entrez,” sung through the closed door, is bright and friendly. For the sake of passers by and those working in the adjacent division rooms, and for the slight chance it isn’t Ellis.
Inside, Bastien is on his feet beside his desk, comparing the quirks of handwriting on a page of symbolic code to a stack of Trade-language letters, one at a time. Some he discards quicker than others. During the transition from one handwriting comparison to the next, Bastien looks up at Ellis, and he smiles with one side of his mouth and none of the false cheer from entrez.
The ring is on the corner of his desk nearest to him, with its chain curled around it in a spiral.
“Are you hungry?” he asks. “I keep bringing pastries to see if I can bribe anyone to help me with this—“ All of this, the office cluttered with signs of a spy’s unfinished tasks. “—and then eating them all myself.”
no subject
Inside, Bastien is on his feet beside his desk, comparing the quirks of handwriting on a page of symbolic code to a stack of Trade-language letters, one at a time. Some he discards quicker than others. During the transition from one handwriting comparison to the next, Bastien looks up at Ellis, and he smiles with one side of his mouth and none of the false cheer from entrez.
The ring is on the corner of his desk nearest to him, with its chain curled around it in a spiral.
“Are you hungry?” he asks. “I keep bringing pastries to see if I can bribe anyone to help me with this—“ All of this, the office cluttered with signs of a spy’s unfinished tasks. “—and then eating them all myself.”