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click
“Seraph.”
“Uh, hello, I – listen, Seraph, do you have a secure line we could use?”
“This is a secure line.”
“No, I mean like, a scrambled one? I have a box, I just need –”
“No.”
“… You don’t – then how are we supposed to – listen, this is sensitive, Orca always uses a scrambled line for –”
“And Orca is now unavailable, which is why you are contacting me. How long have you been operating in Sanctfell?”
“Uh, about a year now, but –”
“If you want to last five years here, you will listen to me. You do not use a scrambler in Sanctfell. It is not conducive to your freedom or your survival.”
“But I thought the phones here are –”
“The telephones are of course tapped, but there is almost nothing you can say that is more suspicious than refusal to be overheard. Your words can all be made to disappear – for the right price, which is included in my consulting fee, paid to the right people, who know me well. Your concealment, however, will eventually raise alarms that cannot be so easily dismissed, and the Commission do not need to know what you have said. They know where you live.”
“So I’m just supposed to tell you everything when I know they’re listening?”
“Are you plotting the assassination of the High Magistrate?”
“… What? No!”
“Are you, perhaps, planting bombs to destroy the Third Clocktower?”
“No!”
“Have you abducted the Ursine Ambassador’s child for ransom?”
“Of course not!”
“Then for you and for me, this line is as secure as any can be. Now, speak your business.”