The desk shook a little as Jamal bounced his knee restlessly.

 How much longer?

This was the one thought that had bounced around inside his mind for the last three hours. He had been sweating due to the heat in the room and his t-shirt was now drenched in sweat. His jet black hair was now damp and a mess as compared to the sleek look it had before he had been introduced to this weather.

The two men sitting on swivel chairs and watching seven screens had kept their silence for the last six hours straight. Each of the screens had different feeds and attention was never kept on a single one for too long.

The room they were in was not small though it gave that impression due to its contents. There was a messy cot which they had taken turns on,  a mini fridge which was now empty save for a bottle of cola, a small section in the corner where they had set up the mini-bathroom. And finally the desk they were sitting in front of which had the screens, two keyboards and  several CPUs underneath it.

Jamal looked through his drooping eyelids at his partner and wondered how long the older guy lived doing jobs like this.

It had been 3 days already at their current location and he was already tired even though he had slept and eaten normally while working less than his partner. His partner, as ever, didn’t look as though he had a hair out of place ever since they had met up and set up shop in the room.

The older guy had simply introduced himself as Bink and answered in monosyllables ever since they had joined up. Bink had brown hair which was beginning to gray while his hairline was well into its recession. He was a moon-faced,middle-aged guy who always seemed bored and reminded Jamal a little of Danny DeVito, though he was considerably taller than the caustic little giant that had graced the silver screen not too long ago. His apparent boredom had not changed even after they had been given new orders earlier that afternoon.

If Jamal had observed closely, he would have noticed that Bink had a pattern of keeping check on the screens ever since they had begun. 1,5,2,4,3,6 and then the tablet he rested on his lap to keep notes. The only thing he had noticed was that the Bink walked with slight hitch in his left leg.

Jamal attributed his own survival during this time to the one extra screen which they were using which had turned out to be unnecessary. He had tuned its signal to the multitude of satellite signals present in this particular country. So now the screen showed the news, movies and Jamal’s favorite, game shows. Those show-tunes provided the only outlet for all of his nervous energy. There had been no objection to the choice of programming from Bink ever since they had started the assignment. Tonight was a rerun of “Who wants to be a millionaire” and Jamal could barely wait till the show was over as that was when their assignment would be concluded. The sudden nature of the order to cut the duration by 4 whole days had been a great source of relief for the young fellow.

He could only be glad that the surveillance would be coming to an end. The subject of their surveillance, Ronald Hereira, a young man in his 20s, had been just another name to them at the beginning but now they knew as much as they could know about him as they ever would for the time being. The older man’s  'skills' with technology and his own 'skills' in getting into and out of places he wasn't supposed to be in had helped to get a pretty thorough picture of Ronald's life.

The subject in question was now on three of their screens watching some comedy show on his television while eating nachos. Two other screens focused on thermal images of the sleeping forms of the roommates. The investigation into their lives, while not as rigorous, did not yield anything worth pursuing, just as there was nothing special about Ronald.

As far as Jamal was concerned, the current subject was not worth this work at all, an opinion he had cultivated since day one of this assignment.

Well anyway only 5 more minutes and we can pack up.

All that remained was the final signal that would initiate their departure. And sure enough just as the show ended with the host wishing the audience goodnight, the phone in between them buzzed once, twice, thrice and stopped.

With that, both of them started packing up their personal equipment and trash as they cleaned the room, preparing the apartment for whoever might come there next.  Bink typed in a few commands tasking the stationary camouflaged Hover cams to leave their positions and return to their cloaked charging spots.

All the while, he watched Jamal out of the corner of his eye observing the younger man's behavior. It wasn’t curiosity or some other innocent reason but borderline paranoia which kept him vigilant. He watched as Jamal packed up his own stuff. He saw the younger man constantly eye the watch he was wearing, a regular-looking digital watch, almost exactly like the one Bink was wearing.

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The younger man seemed to be mostly ready except for a small bunch of trash in his right hand. As if almost on cue as waited while fidgeting, his watch buzzed twice. Jamal's left hand relaxed and let go of the small rod he was holding inside his bag and he quickly stuffed his own trash inside the bag.

The young man wasn’t sure what he would have done if the watch hadn’t given the fail-safe signal. He finally looked at Bink in the face and said “Well, I’m off.” He was absolutely relieved he didn’t have to kill the older guy and walked past him out of the room.  

Bink stood there for a minute or so and put his tablet into his bag and shouldered it while inputting the final erase commands into the computers which now showed blank feeds except the sixth screen which showed some telemarketing ads now that the game show was over.

Once he was done, he started to exit the room before he remembered something and returned to his chair. He looked around at the open door and quickly removed two small rods which formed part of each hand rest of the chair. The small rods looked just like the one Jamal had in his bag.

Bink looked at it for a few seconds and pressed a barely noticeable switch on its side using his thumb and a long blade silently and violently emerged from the end of the rod. He looked at the blade for a few seconds and then pushed the blade back in using the wall as he exited and slipped the two rods up his sleeves as he walked out of the apartment block and into the crowded streets.

Jamal was already long gone and it was only now that Bink truly relaxed. Not completely but the relief he had felt when his watch had buzzed just as the show ended was finally visible on his face. He glanced around casually and once in the direction where he knew his subject for the last three days was still sitting and watching the soap. He had sent his report on the same just a few minutes before he had wiped the room and it only had three lines in it:

//Subject: R***** H******

//Assessment: Non-issue.

//Recommendation: Discontinue surveillance.

Short and sweet.

Bink was satisfied with the work though he wondered why the assignment’s duration had been reduced. This had been the third time something like this had happened.

He looked back to the ground around him and quietly walked away , most likely to another room just like the one he had been in with a slight hitch in his step.

------------------------------

A few minutes later, the room’s door opened and a man looked inside, carefully looking for anything he could use. He nodded as he walked into the room and didn’t find a thing after three minutes.

His mobile buzzed and he flipped it open and immediately said,

”Somebody’s been naughty, but covered their tracks well”,

"Well obviously, but more to the point, how's the acting career so far?”,

”No, no problems, just a pain to keep up the pretense, and yes I followed your script almost to letter, by which I mean I didn’t do the part which I know you put in just to screw with me.

"Aww, You're no fun, the report wouldn't have gone anywhere even if you had. It would just been a small piece of entertainment for those poor guys. Ah forget it, what's done is done, everything set on your end?”,

”Yes, let’s start, we only have 2 months remaining, all candidates are ready for approach, no more time for your cat and mouse antics. ”

“But that's the best part of it all. You need to entertain yourself and more importantly, me. It's not fair i don't get to play with you anym....... FLUSH!!! HA! Beat THAT ALFREDO!!..... umm, that was my twin Bruno.”,

“Yeah, yeah glad I could entertain you, now stop playing poker and pretending to be your own fake twin brother and get started” growled Ronald as he flipped the phone shut and finally tossed the popcorn he had been twiddling with onto the desk.

He shook his head in part despair and part amusement when he thought of his boss at the other end of the phone. He then looked at the folder he had been holding.

I’m pretty sure his genius came at the price of his naming sense.  

And he considered the name buried under all the wear and tear on the folder.  

He then stepped up to the screen on the desk, the only one which stood on the desk instead of being attached to the walls, the one which had been showing the game show just a while back and was now in the middle of some skimpily dressed women chasing a man like the plague. He snapped off a false compartment on its back and put the file inside and then snapped it shut. once the compartment was back in place, the screen briefly flickered to a simple blue screen with one word on it: 'Secure'.

Then he made his way out of the room picking up the piece of popcorn on the way and disappeared into the night.