In which we find out about Georgiana's [wait can't give too much information away] and that NSA directors are code-named three consecutive letters of the alphabet, no doubt because they are far to busy to actually remember the alphabet, so they add it to their names for easy access
Author's Notes: The Darcy's signature quote is from Digital Fortress [which I would rate M].
Elizabeth flipped through a stack of papers on her desk, then scanned them onto her computer. She ran the surveillance tape on her computer one more time, to make sure she had used a silver wire and not a copper wire. Rummaging through her drawers, she found some bits and pieces that she could use to rebuild her mini-camera, including a cheap cell phone.
Darcy was consumed in his work (as usual). If he didn't crack this code soon, the entire US (50 states plus Washington D.C. and Guam and the Virgin Islands and etc. etc.) could be destroyed. Elizabeth's software was basic, but it seemed to be working. Darcy thought the code was most likely written in Spanish and was about a web of bombs spread across North America. A window popped up on his screen:
Español invalid. Latin word pattern detected.
Hm, okay, it wasn't Spanish, most likely Latin. He typed in a few words and reran the program. Then he opened his e-mail application, attached two files, and typed:
To: Director XYZ .
Cc: Sub-Director UVW .gov
From: Fitzwilliam Darcy .gov
Subject: cc
I have finished decrypting the code. The cleartext file is labeled A and the cyphertext file is labeled B. Please send me some decoding software as soon as possible.
Sincerely,
Fitzwilliam Darcy of the NSA
:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.
Everything's possible. The impossible just takes longer.
He clicked Send and watched the little loading circle spin twice before the message was officially sent. Darcy stepped out of his office, extremely pleased with himself.
Elizabeth was overloaded with work, the submarine server rescue mission, the poaching in Florida, the falcon camera, the mini-camera, and the owl field testing Charlotte was nagging her about. She sat down in the crowded Internet café and ordered coffee, black. Elizabeth yawned. Multi-tasking was overloading the computer circuits, and her laptop crashed. She rebooted her computer and took out a second laptop.
Darcy and Bingley walked into the Internet café, Bingley talking five wps (words per second). Bingley sat down next to Elizabeth, "You look terrible, almost worse than Darcy on a good day." Elizabeth cracked a smile, "Too much work." Charlotte walked over to their table. "Oh my gosh! YOU NEED SLEEP! Forget about the field testing. Get some sleep. Now." Darcy wondered what the huge fuss was about, "How long have you been awake? Seventy-two hours?"
"About." Elizabeth replied.
"That's not too bad…" Darcy muttered. Bingley rolled his eyes, "DUH! For you." Darcy was about to protest, but Bingley cut him off. "Ladies need their beauty sleep. I know two people who don't need beauty sleep. Jane, because she's pretty no matter what, and you, since you're ugly no matter what." Darcy harrumphed.
"Okay, but I need to attend this e-conference right now." Elizabeth said, poking her screen. Charlotte sat down and pulled one of Elizabeth's laptop toward her. "Me too." She typed in the password to the network. Bingley wandered out of the café to find Jane. Darcy stayed, because he was a workaholic. Plus the café had good éclairs.
The e-conference ended, and Elizabeth shut her laptop. Darcy scrolled through his inbox and opened one of the (somewhat annoying) CIA update e-mails. "What's Atlantis? Don't tell me it's real. The advanced civilization on a floating island actually existed? And Laputia too?" Elizabeth yawned again, "Atlantis is submarine. Laputia is airship." She shut her laptop. "Char, take them back to my office later." Then Elizabeth went to her office to catch some "beauty sleep".
Darcy looked at his assignment page once more.
Name: Fitzwilliam Darcy
Alias(es): Darce, Will, William, Fitz, Fitzel, Agent Darcy, Agent Fitzwilliam, The-Guy-Who-Never-Sleeps
Relations/Family/Friends: Mrs. Darcy(Deceased), Mr. Darcy(Deceased), Catherine de Bourough, Miss Bourough, Miss Darcy, Mr. Bingley
Assignment: Learn the importance of top secret government information and lie-detecting, emotion reading, motives, surveillance, and moles.
Field Notes: N/A
Elizabeth felt much better after sleeping for four hours. She picked up one of her laptops and scrolled through the surveillance tape thumbnails. There were some smugglers near the Canadian border, some illegal immigrants near the Mexican border (funnily enough, they seemed to be Americans headed to Mexico), but nothing really important. She reread her notes on oil spills and submarine cameras. This reminded her of her mini-camera; she took it out of the drawer and put some batteries in. Then she attached it to one of her plants on the patio garden. Now for the rescue mission. How could anything or anyone possibly get close enough without getting oil-fied? Also, what if the wifi went crazy and made top secret government info available to your everyday hacker (and send out a wave of wifi that will react with a certain totem pole in Yckanguara to cause an explosion so big, it would completely destroy the world)? What about the fire risk? This was getting complicated. On top of that, five dead panthers were found in Florida, they were all shot and skinned. Maybe a dolphin could get the server? She'd have to do some testing on that.
Bingley was happily typing away at his laptop, IMing Jane while figuring out which politicians were corrupt. Darcy entered the room with a stack papers, "Did they send the discs yet?" This was the four hundred and seventy second time he had asked that, but Bingley was still patient and not the least bit cranky. "Nope. I'll tell you when it gets here. Do you have the files?" Darcy placed the stack on his desk. "Yes. They're right here-"
Bingley interrupted him, "YESSS! I beat my Tetris high score!" Darcy glanced at the screen, 100 394 384, psh, Darcy had gotten that in high school. "Anyways, read the files, and then try to classify them." Darcy sat down and opened the first file, Egypt's Atomic Bomb (AD 800). BOR-ING!
Elizabeth dove into the tank. Kalo the dolphin playfully splashed her, completely unaware of the task he was about to be given. A box with the exactly same appearance, size and weight as the submarine server was semi-floating in the water. Elizabeth showed Kalo a picture of the computer and made the motion "retrieve". He swam off and pushed the box toward her. Good. But the actual gulf would be filled with oil and debris, not to mention a lot of decaying organic matter. Simulated debris would have to be added to the field. Elizabeth carefully threw a lot of rubbish into the tank. She showed Kalo a picture of wires and made the motion "NO!". Then she showed the picture of the computer and made the "retrieve" motion again. Kalo swam after the computer, but got stuck in some trash. Elizabeth carefully disentangled Kalo and repeated the showing of pictures and motions. After five times, Kalo had succeeded, and Elizabeth decided to give him some fish, a biodegradable rubber ducky, and a break.
Darcy got a 97% on his classifying, which was not good enough, the CIA required at least 110%. He had also received an e-mail from his sister.
To: Fitz .gov
From: Georgiana Darcy .gov
Subject: Hi-hi!
Hi! You haven't emailed me in a long time!:3 [don't tell me, you have work (rolls eyes)]. You don't even care about me anymore [JK] How's the CIA? Don't tell me you've been a snob to them all.
Next week is Veronyka's birthday, (in case you forgot, she's turning three [and if you have extremely terrible memory and you're wondering who the heck is Veronyka: she's my daughter]) you better be there on Friday. OR ELSE!
Love,
Giana
P.S. Veronyka says "hi-hi fitz" to you
.~`~.~`~ .~`~ .~`~ .~`~ .~`~ .~`~ .~`~ .~`~.
Just because you aren't paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.
Darcy looked at his calendar (more accurately, peered through a small space between stacks of paper, saw a blank date, shrugged and convinced himself that was Friday) good, he didn't have any meetings on Friday. He clicked the Reply button:
To: Giana .gov
From: Fitzwilliam Darcy .gov
Subject: Re: Hi-hi!
Dear Giana,
I'm sincerely sorry that I have been unable to contact you lately. The CIA operates much more loosely, only about 10.285% of the are workaholics.
What do you think Veronyka would like for her birthday? Should I invite Charles too?
Sincerely,
Fitzwilliam Darcy of the NSA
:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.
Everything's possible. The impossible just takes longer.
Darcy got an email a second after he clicked Send, from the CIA Updates:
To: Agent Fitzwilliam fitz,; Other Classified People xxx…
From: CIA News
Places:
Atalantis has floated toward Australia, away from the oil spill.
Laputia has neared the Ring of Fire's edge.
People N/A
Things: Plant Mini-Cams have been delayed due to accident.
Ideas: Retrieval Plan meeting is next week Tuesday.
Seminars/Meetings/Demonstrations/Operations/etc.:
Agent Elizabeth will be doing a dolphin and aviary demonstration for children on Friday. Space is limited.
Ping! Another e-mail:
To: Fitz .gov
From: Georgiana Darcy .gov
Subject: Re: Re: Hi-hi!
Sure, Char can come too. (But seriously, don't invite his sisters, or else I'll personally kill you.)
Silly Veronyka, she wants a unicorn for her birthday. I told her it's extremely hard to find a unicorn, she said "fine, me want dolphy [dolphin]". I don't see how either of them is possible, but whatevs.
Veronyka can almost play F¨r Elise on the piano now. I'm going to get her some Tchaikovsky and Mozart soon. Maybe a violin for her birthday? IDK…
Turn on your IM!
Love,
Giana
.~`~.~`~ .~`~ .~`~ .~`~ .~`~ .~`~ .~`~ .~`~
Just because you aren't paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.
Darcy changed his status to Available, but only to Georgiana, he was still Invisible to the rest of the cyberworld.
Giana: hiya!
Fitzwilliam_darcy: Hello
Giana: I no! ill get her a $200 music store gift card, & she can get whatev.
Fitzwilliam_darcy: I might be able to arrange something with the dolphins…
Yeah, sure, no chance Elizabeth's going to cancel for him. But he had to at least try.
GIana: Oh, you can buy a dolphin? Even if you could, no way could I hav time to take care of it.
Darcy knocked on Elizabeth's door. "Enter" Elizabeth said, then glanced at the feed coming from the camera right outside the door, "or not."she muttered. Darcy stepped into her office.
"Erm. I have a request. On Friday…"
"I have a full-day Employee's Kid's event."
"Any chance of cancelling?"
"For what?"
"I have a niece…she's three…"
"I'm not cancelling for YOU! Or any of your relations."
"But it's her birthday!"
"SO?"
"I'll pay you…"
"NO WAY!"
"Fine. What else do you want?"
"Nothing. Just get out of my office." She growled. "NOW."
Elizabeth turned back to her mini-camera. She managed to solder the last pieces together and then set it down. Sighing, she picked up her phone. Darcy was annoying , but she shouldn't have channeled her frustration on the mini-camera to his niece. Plus, being related to Darcy didn't automatically mean you were horrible.
To:: Fitzwilliam Darcy .gov
From: Elizabeth Bennet .gov
Subject [No Subject]
Okay, here's a compromise, send me your niece's info, and I can sneak her onto the list.
But you'll have to bring her, 'cause it's a CIA only event.
Elizabeth clicked Send. The message whirled through cyber space and into Darcy's inbox. A window popped up:
1 unread message.
To: Liz .gov
From: Isable Bennet .gov
Subject: Party
You are coming no matter what!
When: Next Tuesday
Where: Our house
Ciao
Elizabeth glanced at her calendar, she had her Armadillo on Pogosticks meeting, her WPO meeting, the Employee's Kids' thingy, the Submarine Server Retrieving meetings, and now this. Craziness.
Fitzwilliam_darcy: I might be able to take Veronyka to a CIA employees' kid thing on Friday. It has dolphins and other animals.
Giana: ok…
Fitzwilliam_darcy: But it's employees only, so you can't go.
Giana: Ok. Ill move her party 2 thurs, That's her real bday anways, gtg, cyas
Darcy shut his phone. Maybe…Elizabeth might let him take Veronyka to the EK thing. He glanced at his inbox:
5 unread messages.
One of them was from Elizabeth. He opened it. Then he opened all the other messages from Rhi'anna Bingley. She was rambling on some crazy stuff about chocolate and potatoes and coconuts and stuffed frogs and teddy bears. He marked the messages as Spam. Then he clicked the reply button to Elizabeth's message.
To: Elizabeth Bennet .gov
From: Fitzwilliam Darcy .gov
Subject: Re:
That would be great.
Darcy clicked Send. Then he marked his calendar…well he tried to, there was a ridiculous amount of paper in front of him. He decided it was time for…a scanner. (dun dun dunnnn) He got a portable SmartScanner from the supplies and scanned his papers. He inwardly laughed at how Georgiana had said maybe she could get Veronyka a two hundred dollar gift card, as if it was just a trip to the dollar store. If they weren't so rich, Darcy would not have allowed Georgiana to keep Veronyka. Georgiana was only 20 years old now. But they were rich, and Veronyka wasn't hindering Giana's studies (Actually, Veronyka may be helping Georgiana improve), so Darcy had grudgingly agreed. (It was Darcy, nobody else would have been able to resist such a cute little girl.) Finally, he finished scanning the ridiculously huge stack of papers and then threw them into the paper shredder. Then he looked all over for a pen to mark his calendar.