A blur of trees framed his crumpled reflection. Pete turned away from the window as the coach stopped.
“Jamie!”
“Hey Pete.”
Jamie buffeted along the aisle and crab-walked a lanky frame into seats 4A and B in front.
“A bit iffy at one point. Paypal not going through, Visa card not in the usual place. Found it here.” With a jagged inhalation he patted his back pocket. “Hadn’t eaten in 10 hours; must have put it back after Pret. Real fuck of a journey altogether. Still, made it in the end.”
Jamie passed a paper tissue over his dewing brow and dripping end of nose.
Pete ignored the implicit proffer of further details of the Hadean journey, shut his laptop and looked up at Jamie.
“So, why’ve they called you in?”
“Mohan was pulled. Wife in labour. 2 months early. He just texted; she’s in Delivery right now”
“What’s the current count?” Pete, mouth half open, adopted an enquiring-as-if-interested face.
“Just the one, Rohit. This next one’s a girl.”
“They didn’t summon Georgie Boy then?” George had been the most senior operative and team leader of Analytics.
“You didn’t know? Retired last February. Threw one helluva party after Covid.”
“Missed it; invitation on the mat when I got back from the Arctic Cruise”
Lies; the invitation and the Arctic, both lies.
If I’m ranked lower than Jamie, why was I summoned before him. What can I do, he can’t, – not Facial Recognition Remodelling, not Deep Fake CCTV? We all do those. Fake text-to-speech audio and lip sync video?
Pete undid the upper button on his T-shirt and with a finger flick turned on the camera mic.
Jamie prided his skill reading body language. That tell-tale mannerism of Pete fiddling with his T-shirt buttons indicated he was gearing up. Well, he too could play the revenge game.
“They were all there. Even Big- Chief Forrester and his sidekick Sheila the Poisoned Dwarf. Man, how they partied! Forrester left with Fi and the Dwarf had to be carried out and put in a taxi.”
Indiscretion in an operative was an intolerable misjudgement, revealing nicknames the nadir of treachery… and a potential breach of corporate security.
“It’s cooling now.” Pete re-buttoned his T-shirt, opened his laptop’s e-mail, selected Comms; Agent Monitoring and pressed SEND after adding as the video’s title < FYI Shallow Reality Not Deep Fake>
Georgie Boy (retired), Me, Jamie. That’s the order. So, my promotion next?
Pete was still mid-story. “Got home 5 am. The wife was livid. Whole team nursing hangovers the next day. Talking of wives, how are you and Deirdre going?”
“Debbie”
“Debbie, yeah. Still just the two kids?”.
“Yeah, James and Ellie. It was their 3rd birthday last Saturday: clowns, balloons, you know the whole caboodle. Actually, number 3 on the way, Debbie’s 6 months gone.”
“Any preference?”
“Don’t really mind, boys or girls”
