#and even dig up some screen caps of past scam waves so people can see what i'm talking about

[thebreakfastgenie]

It has occurred to me that it's easy for us internet old-timers to assume everyone is intimately familiar with the signs of a scam post because they've been seeing them for years like we have, but that may not be the case! There may be a lot of well-intentioned users who are not familiar with the tumblr scam lingo. For that kind of user, it might be concerning to see people say "I can tell from the way this message is written that it is fake." So I want to address that concern in good faith.

When people say the fundraisers asks (and many of the posts as well, but particularly the asks) sound like scams, they are not saying that just because the language is desperate or the grammar is incorrect. It's true that people who are not native English speakers might make grammatical errors, it's true that people in a desperate situation might use strong language, it's even true that different cultures might have different customs around emoji usage and that posts might be formatted a certain way to get attention. The reason many people think those asks and posts are suspicious is that the specific syntax strongly resembles the syntax of past known scams. That means the specific spelling and grammar errors, the specific type of emoji usage, the specific language choices, and the specific formatting choices.

[lostinfic]

1. Indonesia, summer

Summary: She writes for magazines about luxurious resorts in exotic places and five-star hotels in glamorous cities. He’s photographed devastated war zones, refugee camps and child soldiers. For both of them travel is an escape, but he’s had enough of this grim reality, and she’s had enough of this disconnected fantasy. Perhaps together they can find something in between, something real, and stop running from themselves. Each season, a new destination and a chance to grow closer.

Pairing: Alec Hardy x Hannah Baxter Rating: Mature~ish (for now) Word count: 3.9k

A/N: Thank you to @onthedriftinthetardis​ for sharing her insights on being a photographer. Chapters are named after airport codes.

Prologue  |   Ao3    |    Gifset

The large, multi-level pool stops just short of a rocky cliff that dips into the Indian ocean, but the turquoise shade of the chlorinated water creates a nearly seamless continuity. Only the white froth of the waves breaks the illusion. Soak up the sun and let your mind wander beyond the horizon.

Hannah dotted her sentence and flipped back through her notebook. She placed a check mark next to “pool” in her list of resort services and amenities to review.

Soaking up the sun and letting her mind wander wasn’t something she had time to do. This was actually her first time lounging by the pool and even now she couldn’t let herself go, couldn’t just close her eyes and enjoy the warmth on her skin. Her brain noticed every detail and translated them into sentences for her article.

In her job, she often did in one day what others did in three. In the last four days, she had tested the Aquatonic seawater therapeutic pool, four of the five restaurants, the art gallery and shopping arcade, the yoga class, the Canang Ketupat demonstration, the Balinese dancing course, the cycling tour, the sailboat tour and the Segway tour. All the while looking into the eco-tourism aspect of things, she’d noticed the solar panels and the reusable straws in drink, but she wanted to dig deeper. She still had to check on the botanical garden, the activities for kids, the cooking school, the gym, the martini bar, ballrooms and, worse of all, the golf course. Only three days left to do all that.

Perhaps it was time to check out the rooftop bar as well.

A young man worked under the hut-like awning of the bar. He spoke basic English. As he prepared her cocktail, she chatted with him, asking about the band on his t-shirt and his hobbies. But soon, her gaze drifted away from the bartender and the beautiful beach vista, to the island itself, beyond the resort. Too far off for details, it appeared as a chaotic array of colourful houses under palm trees, quivering in the heat like a mirage. The Mahal Kita resort was nothing short of paradise, but her feet itched to explore the rest of the island.

She asked the bartender for recommendations, but he only mentioned activities offered by the resort. When Hannah insisted she wanted to see the town, he laughed, something she’d learned meant “no” here. She questioned him further and found out he wasn’t even from Pulau Kesuma and neither were his nearest coworkers. The employees lived in a dormitory on the premise and left the island on their days off.

As nicely as possible, Hannah insisted to speak to a local person to answer her questions. At last, a maid was waved over. She drew a crude map of the town with indications to the market and a beach. When she expanded her drawing to the west side of the island, the bartender stopped her with such vehemence that both Hannah and the maid started.

“No, no. No west. Dangerous,” he said.

The two Indonesian exchanged a cold glance Hannah couldn’t decipher.

“Okay, then I’ll be careful. Thank you…” She eyed their name tags. “Budi and Alya.” She tipped them both generously.

The hotel’s main entrance opened directly on the jetty where the ferry from Jakarta docked. With water on either side, there was nowhere else to go, so Hannah spent a good twenty minutes looking for another exit leading to the town.

“This is ridiculous,” she muttered to herself.

All the service doors required I.D. cards. Finally, she spotted a kitchen helper and asked him for a light for her cigarette, she offered him one in exchange. She’d found it was always a good way to strike up a conversation with a stranger in a foreign country. Or, in this case, to ask for a favour. The kitchen helper opened a service door and they sneaked out of the hotel.

Hannah felt like Alice stepping through the looking glass. Out of the conditioned and, she now realized, perfumed air of the resort, heat and a hundred scents assailed her: dusty earth, petrol from the old motorbikes used by the locals, and the sweet green fragrance of flowers that gave the island its name, Kesuma. A goat bleated. A bike zoomed past her. And wanderlust stirred butterflies in her stomach.

She donned a large, floppy sun hat and set out to explore new grounds.

*

“Let me the hell out of here,” Hardy said to a security guard.

Five minutes and he had already run out of patience with this place. Jet lag stretched like a tight rubber band around his head. He had a meeting in town with Ellie and her partner, but couldn’t figure out how to get out of the hotel.

He’d arrived late last night, and the ferry took him straight to the resort. Aware of the scam, he hated giving the resort his money, but he had to be inside to investigate.

The security guard let him out a service door and vaguely indicated the direction of the market.

Hardy walked fast. His previous trips to other parts of Indonesia and Ellie’s instructions helped him navigate the unknown town.

The messenger bag holding his camera equipment bumped against his hip with every step, a sensation he’d grown accustomed to. Camera in hands, he was on the lookout for signs of the tourism industry already affecting the local population. On a street corner, a young woman, barely able to meet his eyes, lowered her dress and bra strap. Anger boiled in his stomach. He averted his eyes.

Along the way, he snapped pictures, almost aimlessly: crumbling houses, drunk men, working children. None of it exactly what he needed.

He knew he’d found what he he’d been looking for when he saw it: fishing gear propped against a wall. The composition was perfect: the sun shone on the shiny reels and the hooks dug into dry, cracked soil. The contrast between the fairly new equipment and the dust and spider webs covering it told a story of wasted potential. He took many pictures from different angles.

*

Hannah made her way toward the market as best as she could given the lack of street signs. She turned onto an unpaved narrow street. Small wooden houses crouched between tall palm trees and laundry hung to dry above her head. Women squatted in front of small brick fire places, cooking on a grill set directly over the flames. Chicken pecked around them. Bare-feet children, with dry snot under their noses, played with rusty bottle caps.

It reminded her of a trip to Thailand four years ago. She was no less shocked, and yet fascinated, that people still lived like that. But this time, the nearness of a luxurious resort accentuated her discomfort. And Hannah thought she’d rather be in Europe or North America where poverty wasn’t so confronting.

She felt the eyes of every local on her, they weren’t used to tourists yet. She had only seen one other white person, a weird bloke taking multiple pictures of fishing rods. Some children hid behind their mothers, others called her “Bule!” a slang word for white foreigner. But she never felt threatened or shunned, most people she came across smiled at her in the friendliest manner. She returned the greetings but didn’t engage further. There was always that push and pull within her, between keeping her distance from people and yet wanting to know them.

A girl of about nine with fierce dark eyes and braids approached her and touched her arm. Hannah smiled though she was ambivalent. She wasn’t naturally drawn to children but it would make cute pictures and a good story for her blog. As soon as the thought crossed her mind, Hannah resented it.

“Where can I eat?” Hannah asked the child, miming the action.

Instantly, other children came to her, five of them, with dimpled cheeks and second-hand superhero t-shirts. They all giggled. The eldest little girl, the one who had approached her first, whistled loudly and they all followed her. Hannah had no idea where they were taking her.

Shrubs lined the street and a little boy picked a fruit and handed it to her. It was a small, pinkish ball with green hair. She scrunched up her nose at it and waited until the children had eaten theirs to make sure it wasn’t a joke. A boy, no more than seven, took a knife out of his pocket and expertly sliced open the fruit for her. Inside was a milky white ball, similar to lychees. As she tasted the fruit, her brain looked for the right words to describe the refreshing, mild sweetness of it to her readers.

The children gave her more fruits, and she thanked them in Indonesian, “Terima kasih.”

“Rambutan,” he said.

“Rambutan?” she repeated.

He pulled on his black hair, “rambut,” he said. Then on the hair of the fruits, “rambutan.”

She snapped some photos of them and the fruits with her mobile phone. They all pressed around her, wanting to see the result on the screen. The photoshoot lasted longer than she’d intended. An adult passing by yelled something along the line of “stop pestering her”, and the kids scampered away. All of them except the little girl that had first approached her. In fact, she looked unimpressed by the adult. Hannah felt she’d found a kindred spirit in this kid.

They reached a sort of town square, with a mosque and a park where a group of men had gathered. A tin roof held up by hand-carved columns housed the market place. Hannah marveled at… everything. Behind makeshift stalls, men shouted prices for rice noodles and fruits. On the ground, large, shallow baskets displayed grains and legumes. An eyeless pig face, hung like a mask above a meat stand. Underneath, a bored woman wearing a headscarf chased flies away with a palm leaf.

The whole place was alive with chatter but a tension brewed underneath. Something was amiss.

Hannah wanted to go inside the market, but the little girl guided her elsewhere.

On a street corner, many local people queued. Before them, an old woman, at least eighty years old, hunched-back and sun-spotted, served food to them. Old, misshapen pans and plastic buckets surrounded her. Her knobbly hands efficiently wielded a string to slice through a green, cylindrical fruit. She then dropped handfuls of shredded coconut, balls of sesame seeds, and what looked like tiny pancakes onto a folded banana leaf. She covered carelessly the whole thing with a ladleful of brown syrup. It looked nothing like the “authentic and locally-sourced��� food served at the hotel. And it was certainly less hygienic. But the scents— and her own sense of adventure— were too enticing to resist. She’ll try anything once.

*

Hardy spotted Ellie across the road, waving at him to come over. Her youngest son was with her.

“Hiya! Sorry for making you walk all the way here, we’re not allowed near the resort anymore.”

She gave him that grin of hers, with her small upper teeth pushing forward.

They’d first worked closely together in Bangladesh, after a sweatshop collapsed and killed over one thousand workers. She was a journalist for BBC World. It was her first time covering such a tragedy. Despite a rocky start, they’d developed something like a friendship, but it was hard to keep in touch when they both worked around the world. Last he’d heard of her, her husband had been arrested for murder

“You look well,” Hardy said.

It was an understatement. Her hair had grown, and her loose white linen shirt accentuated the healthy bronze glow of her skin. She seemed happier than he expected given the circumstances.

Beside Ellie stood a short man with a young, russet face, smooth skin safe for a little patch of hair under his bottom lip. He wore a suit despite the heat. He shook Hardy’s hand with nervous enthusiasm and introduced himself as Kadek Suardika Rahi.

They sat on the terrace of a restaurant. An outsider wouldn’t know this was a place of business: a dozen makeshift stools under an awning made from old vinyl advertising banners. In the heat, a rubber-y scent emanated from it.

Hardy was eager to learn more about the scandalous practices of the Mahal Kita Resort, but cultural norms demanded a beverage and small talk first. He opted for a cold drink made with coconut milk rather than the local variation on Java coffee.

“I met Kadek when I was covering the tsunami,” Ellie explained. “He was a doctor in England, but when he saw what was happening in his country, he decided to come back and help his people.”

“And Ellie helped make sure the natural disaster was not forgotten by the international community.”

They shared a smile and so much seemed to pass between them, reminiscence and adoration. And Hardy was surprised to feel a pinch in his heart, a longing for that kind of intimate language without words.

Hardy cleared his throat, suddenly uncomfortable. “So you live here now?”

“Not on Pulau Kesuma, no, not all the time. We live in Jakarta. Tom attends an international school there. Kadek’s whole family is here, though.”

She’d quit her job and now taught journalism at the university on top of helping local newspapers and free speech organizations.

“How’s your daughter?” Ellie asked.

“She’ll start uni next fall.”

He skimmed over the strained relationship with Daisy. He’d taken all the blame for the divorce, and rightly so, he had been away too often. His daughter had once accused him of caring more about children in Africa than about her.

A flash of blond hair and pale skin caught his eye. He scoffed at a young woman in too short shorts and a large hat. She didn’t even notice her selfie stick was in the way of a man and his cow. “Parasite,” he muttered. As far as he was concerned, these tourists were as guilty as the corporation who owned the resort. They should educate themselves and stop encouraging unethical tourism.

Kadek related to him what he’d heard from his family and other local residents. While the people were still struggling with the physical and psychological damage of the tsunami, foreign investors took advantage of the chaos to seize the land. Masked men, armed with machine guns, forcefully evicted the families. They built an electric fence around 400 acres of land. The land acquisition extended into adjoining bodies of water thus denying access to fishing grounds.

“It’s not just about the loss of income,” Kadek insisted, “we are a fishing people. This is our traditional way of life. Now we can be charged with illegal trespassing! On our own land!”

“What about the government?” Hardy asked though he had little illusion as to their role in this.

“The Navy helped the foreign investors,” Ellie answered. “At first we thought it was just a small part of the Navy gone rogue for profit. But when we petitioned the authorities for help we were shut down. They’re bloody shareholders.”

“Ellie received threats after she wrote about it in the Jakarta Post,” Kadek added, putting a protective arm around her shoulders.

The blatant abuse of power made Hardy’s skin crawl.

“Do you have any proof of all this?” he asked.

“Only what people told us. The security guards at the resort know us. We can’t go anywhere near. They don’t like us sniffing around. That’s why we need you.”

Hardy, Ellie and Kadek spent the afternoon touring the island. They talked to evicted families and angry fishermen. Hardy documented the destruction, but the resort people were good at covering their tracks, most of it could be chalked up to the tsunami.

One thing that kept coming back was talk of discolored water that poisoned the mangrove, dead fish drifted to the village like bad omens. No one knew where it was coming from, but a portion of the west side was completely off limits, enclosed by an electric fence and guarded by armed men. Hardy couldn’t risk antagonizing them. Not yet, at least.

He ate supper with Kadek’s parents who welcomed him like a member of the family. He admired how Ellie had adapted and built a new life, a new family, for herself.

When the sun started to set, he left the Rahi family with a promise to help. Wherever he went, he met people who had almost nothing yet demonstrated such generosity. It both soothed him and stoked his drive for justice. And so, he headed back to the hotel to investigate under the cover of darkness.

*

Hannah stepped out of the shower and grabbed the complimentary bathrobe. She noticed its softness. One look at the tag informed her it was made of organic bamboo fibers. She made a mental note to mention it in her article along with the nice mango shower gel that now perfumed the steamy bathroom. These were important details. Her readers expected to learn everything about a hotel, including the quality of the clientele which is why there was a German man in her bedroom. Presently, she caught him hastily pulling up his trousers to sneak out. Shame passed quickly over his handsome face.

“Maybe we can get a drink tomorrow night?” he said.

“Yeah, maybe.”

She was relieved he was leaving on his own so she wouldn’t have to get rid of him with increasingly unsubtle hints. It occurred to her after that he might be here with his wife and family.

She closed the door behind him and fell back on the bed. The room had a high, peaked ceiling made of dark wood and the dim light didn’t reach all the way up it. It looked like a void opening above her, growing as the evening turned darker.

Hannah reached for her phone. She sent Ben a text message, but doubted he would answer; he was sulking. She turned to social media. She posted a picture of the food bought in the market asking “what is this?”. She added a line about the cooking class she would take tomorrow and tagged the resort. Notifications popped up, but somehow only added to the oppressing emptiness growing in her chest. She dismissed the feeling as nothing more than her unsatisfactory hook up. The man had a nice body that promised more pleasure than it had delivered, leaving her keyed up.

Her hand ventured between her thighs. There was nothing but the sea outside her open windows, so she discarded the bathrobe, let the warm night air caress her body and set out to finish what that man had started.

“Hmm, much better,” she sighed after.

She cleaned up and wrapped a long sarong under her arms. Time to get back to work.

With her trusty Moleskin notebook in hand, she sat on the doorstep. A couple of rooms to her left, people were laughing and splashing around, but the sound of the surf, just a few meters ahead, interested her more.

Her pen moved fluidly across the paper, and she found herself writing about that little girl and the old woman serving food. She wondered about their paths in life, about one’s past and the other’s future. How different they were from her own life. She knew none of it would make it into her article, Elite Travelers wasn’t interested in that, but she felt compelled to put her complex feelings into words.

A flash of light disturbed her focus, followed by shutter sounds. She jerked up and squinted through the darkness.

In the bushes, a man was taking pictures of her. How long had he been there? Had he seen her masturbate?

“What the fuck are you doing?”

The man ignored her and kept taking pictures.

“Oi! Stop that, you perv!”

“Wha’? Get back in your room, ma’am.”

She hadn’t expected to hear a Scottish accent. He stepped closer, into the pool of light from her room. She recognized him from earlier in the village.

“Are you stalking me?” He looked at her like she was nuts. “Go away or I’ll call security.”

“Just get back inside. I’m a photojournalist.”

“What? For Playboy? Go. Away.”

“I can’t, I need—”

“That’s it, I’m calling security.” She turned to head back inside her room.

“For god’s sake. Wait!” He climbed the steps up to her. “The hotel management can’t know about this… I’m investigating the resort. Look.”

He showed her the pictures he’d taken: foundations and more brick work, the beach and swamps, portraits of local people. None of her. It was a relief (although having a stalker would be kind of flattering).

She took a good look at him: with his canvas shirt, sleeves rolled up, and scruffy cheeks, he looked overworked rather like a relaxed tourist. There was something about his stance, the hands on his hips, the unwavering gaze on her, an air of detached authority that made her trust him.

“Alright.”

“Good. So, you get back in there and let me do my work,” he said.

“Hold on, I’m a journalist too.”

He quirked an eyebrow, skeptically.

“I am. What are you investigating?”

With more probing—and threatening— he revealed, in vague terms, he was interested in the environmental impacts of the resort.

“What about what’s going on the west side of the island?” she asked.

He perked up at this— as much as this man could perk up. “You’ve seen something?”

“Well, I went sailboating— ”

He scoffed.

“What’s wrong with sailboats?”

“Local fishermen were banned from their own ancestral fishing grounds so you could go on a bloody sailboat. That’s what’s wrong with it.”

The accusation stung. Hannah took a step back. “And that’s my fault, is it? You know, sharks almost went extinct here because of the fishermen.”

He didn’t reply, though she had the feeling it wasn’t because she’d won the argument. He obviously knew more than he let on. As annoying as he was, she wanted to know more too.

She invited him in her room, to show him something she’d discovered on her photos. During the sailing excursion, Hannah had spotted what seemed like a lovely secluded beach. However, when she asked about it to the captain, he immediately veered the boat away. That beach was on the west side of the island, the one she’d been warned against this morning.

She handed him her phone, but he frowned at the selfie displayed.

“No, look closer, you muppet, in the background.”

She zoomed in. There was a high fence, partly covered with vegetation, and what looked almost like a bunker.

“Maybe there’s another way in,” the photographer mumbled. “There are rumors about— oh...”

He’d swiped too far and reached a picture of Hannah in a rather revealing bikini. She tittered at his blush. He shoved the phone back in her hands with a scowl. He considered her for a moment. His sharp gaze openly scanned her, and Hannah became very aware that she was wearing only a sarong.

“Alright,” he said, having come to some conclusion. “Could you take me there?”

“Yes,” she replied with more confidence than she felt.

Hannah went to the bathroom to put on a pair of shorts and a white t-shirt. She felt like she’d drank too much coffee. She was excited by the secretive nature of the investigation and the shared complicity with this photographer.

She slipped her phone and keycard in her back pockets, and they headed out through the patio door.

“I’m Hannah Baxter, by the way.”

“Hardy.” They shook hands. “C’mon, Baxter, stop withering.”

#

Chapter 2: Indonesia, summer (cont’d)

A/N: Pulau Kesuma is a fictional place but what happened there after the tsunami is based on real events that took place in Sri Lanka.