Jean Beckett, a novelist with a big family

The thing about writing for a living was that it never went away.

No matter what time of day it was, you always could write. Your word processor was always there, and your brain kept spinning out ideas, sometimes at the most inconvenient of times. It was easy to fall back into the rhythm of the job even during time set aside for oneself.

For Jean, this sometimes meant being up incredibly late with an idea on her mind and the glow of a monitor lighting up her eyes. With her red hair tied up in a loose ponytail behind her, and her freckled face a pale oval illuminated by the white light of a text field and nothing else, she was in perfect position when the conspiracy finally began to move.

Of course, the room she was in- and every other room in her home besides- was thoroughly bugged, monitoring provided by the best of the surveillance industry, with the footage streamed live to various websites and other transmissions systems that Jean and her family would never see. Anyone who needed to know where she was for their part of the plan to work could see her with ease, and thus when things began, it was with the well-oiled grace of only the most well-funded and staffed conspiracies.

More people watched Jean react to the knock at her door that night than had ever tuned into her feeds before. They saw her eyes widen, her face turn to profile as she looked toward her front door, puzzled at who could be there at this late hour. They followed her as she rose from her chair, padded barefoot down the hall, and spent a moment checking that the chain was on the door before cracking it open.

When Jean and her visitor finally saw one another face-to-face through the gap between frame and door, the surveillance streams switched to a split-screen view to better watch these two victims of the conspiracy react to one another...