Work Text:
I intercepted the coded message as it tried to attach itself to a packet of outgoing mail. Tricky little fucker. And of course it had more than the normal encryption, too.
Figuring how how many layers of encryption took an embarrassingly long time, because one layer looked like it was going to resolve into a normal feed link. It didn't, though. The nonsense in front of the routing codes was, in fact, the cypher for deciphering the routing codes (which I figured out when I realized that they weren't actually destination markers and didn't match any known station or planet). The layer after that was the final message. One word.
"Bitch."
My mouth did whatever thing it does when I have a positive and negative emotion at the same time. Ratthi had said last week, "Honestly, I can't tell if this is flexing on him or flirting," which was gross, but his next guess—"very weird prank war"—was close. It was an enrichment exercise that had gotten out of hand. At the same time, neither of us wanted to stop, both because we didn't want to lose, and also because—I don't know. I don't know if I'd call it fun. But I don't know if I'd call it not fun.
It sounds very weird to say I kind of like it when Gurathin irritates me. That makes no sense, so it couldn't be that.
Anyway, my next package was going to drive him insane, assuming he even caught it in the first place. I settled into the chair in my station apartment, put on some media, and began planning the most irritating possible way to encrypt the word asshole.