Work Text:
A Dark Cyber-Intelligence Hub (Interior)
[The Room] Glowing screens, low hum of servers, and a single, exhausted agent, COOPER, wearing a high-tech headset. Across the room, the SUPERVISOR enters, holding a coffee.
SUPERVISOR: Cooper! Report. We’ve been pinging that target at the I-80 rest stop for three hours. Heavy cargo hauler, cross-state lines—definitely a high-risk logistics asset. Did you crack the encrypted data? What are the "suspicious exchanges"?
COOPER: (Sighs, rubbing eyes) Sir, I’ve bypassed the security protocols. I am currently deep in the "suspicious exchanges."
SUPERVISOR: (Leaning in) Illegal cargo? Foreign contacts?
COOPER: No, sir. It’s... it’s a 15-message thread to a "Self-Chat" group. The most recent one says, "What if the pirate captain is actually a barista in an Alternate Universe where coffee is the only currency?"
SUPERVISOR: ...What?
COOPER: There’s more. I’ve accessed the photo gallery. I was looking for cargo manifests or delivery manifests for heavy hauling. Instead, I found 400 photos of a bedroom that is... aggressively purple.
SUPERVISOR: Purple?
COOPER: There are statues, sir. Thousands of dollars in limited-edition figurines and really gay posters. The target just took a screenshot of their bank app. Balance is exactly $0.42.
SUPERVISOR: (Stares at the screen) She’s driving a 40-ton rig with a median salary of $57,440 and she has forty-two cents?
COOPER: Yes. Apparently, she just pre-ordered a 10-inch Glow-in-the-Dark Rei Suwa.
SUPERVISOR: (Puts down coffee) Abort the surveillance. If she’s this committed to a fictional slow-burn romance while hauling freight, she doesn't have the time or the money to be a threat to national security.
COOPER: Copy that. (Muttering) ...Though the barista AU actually has some solid world-building.