11 / 09 / 10 - Andrew, Isabel, Jean-Paul, Lilah, Madrox, Remy, Terry, Tom, Xen

[xmm_beaubier]

=XF= Meeting Room - Second Floor - Titan Enterprises

A broad, oval table is circled with chairs designed to seat people comfortably for many hours and ward off their temptation to nap: ergonomics at its best. Recessed touchscreens can be lifted from the table, while a screen at the head of the table provides larger display. The room is plain and sleekly functional, while the touches of technology are cutting edge.

The meeting room looks much like it always does, save for a handout at three seats that sit next to each other. Each lists a few of the key bullet points from their previous class and then has two columns filled with blank lines. One is headed with a :), the other with a :(. Isabel is in the midst of setting papers at the final two seats, bent to stretch across the table's width despite the fact that teke ought to do just as good, really.

Seated off to the side, Jean-Paul slacks as Isabel does the hard work. That is why he is the area head. From the looks of it, he is filling out paperwork assorted with certification business. Surely there can't be that much of it, right? As this is X-Factor, and we are high tech, his fingers tap across a keyboard rather than guide a pen.

Lilah is quiet as she slips into the room, moving to settle at the sharper curve of the oval opposite Isabel's side, flopping down in a chair as her head props automatically on her hand. She is much the same as always, wrinkled boys' tee a bright yellow with faded white lettering and well-mended jeans hanging off her hips, both hiding her figure. As she settles, she withdraws a pen and a folded piece of paper from her pocket and puts them on the table in front of her.

Oo. Oo. Terry has been good about being patient. REALLY GOOD. She kind of hangs out near the back of the room once she slips in. Her hair is in a braid hanging down between her shoulders. Well, not really because she's fiddling with the end.

Remy pauses in the doorway for a moment before slinking the rest of the way in, a look given to the handouts and the places that ends up as an interrogatively raised pair of eyebrows and a further pause to see who ends up sitting where before he makes a seating choice himself.

Madrox comes in. He's fedora'd and jacketed, and his hair is a little squish-mussed. He seems to be settling away a vague unsettlement even as he takes a seat on the far end of the table. Which ends up kind of near Terry. It is like a CLOSET SNUGGLE, JP.

There is a clear division in the room - five sheets with handouts near the back for the students. And -- well. The rest for instructors. Isabel retreats toward the latter, wiping her hands against her jeans as if the papers perhaps have cooties.

He has no plate. Maybe Terry can steal a pen from him?

Tom chimes a light greeting against Lilah's thoughts before he pads into the room, heralding his arrival by a few heartbeats. He comes in, dressed about as he always is; although he has changed his pants since this morning, and he's got a baseball cap in his hands. He glances around the room, marking people's relative positions around the meeting room table. He flops into a chair obviously on the student side and hitches his knee against the table, leaning back in a low-slung slouch in the chair.

Xen comes strolling into the room behind Madrox, glancing down at the three seats with the sheets of paper in the columns. A second glance reveals the sheets of paper for the students-- see? Practicing surveillance helps with observation! Xen slides into one of the students' seats, obnoxiously in the middle.

Andrew has a random legal pad to take his notes on, and once he comes in, he starts to automatically flop into a seat, but seeing the handouts, he changes course and sits where indicated, beside Xen.

Glancing up, Jean-Paul tracks the trickle of arrivals almost absently. His attention sharpens a bit here, there, but he is very good at bland when he tries to be. And he is trying. His attention refuses to settle until he looks back at the screen, and he continues typing, and waits.

Iago shows up is his usual shirt and tie combination, colored pink and navy blue receptively. There is a pen tucked behind his ear and he's checking his watch. On time, right? Since he's a student, and there's apparently a division in the room, he sits in the back where he's supposed to be without comment.

There's a brightness as Lilah's telepathy reaches out in return to brush against Tom's mind in a welcoming gesture, her lips quirking up slightly before they smooth out into a soberness that the mood of the meeting seems to warrant. Her thoughts remain light, however, some touch of pride and happiness with how she did in the exercise that may or may not be founded.

Remy eventually comes to a decision. While not sitting at the back goes against every miscreant fibre of his body, he manages a compromise. He sits along one of the sides.

Once everyone has arrived and settled, Isabel gives the room a glance and says, "Okay. So I gave you guys some papers basically to remind you of the key points and to give you some space to take note of what you did well and what you did not so well. Anyone need a pen?" She pauses all of five seconds for the response - Jean-Paul can hand out pens! - before adding. "All right! Who figured out who their tail was?"

"I did!" Lilah says first, raising her hand in a shot up.

Tom is wryly smug in the ghost of his mental touch against Lilah's mind; he highlights her sense of pride in her accomplishments in what is basically the mental equivalent of a thumbs up. He does this without glancing in her direction or making eye contact. Pen twirled between his fingers, he raises his hand and very carefully does not smile.

Jean-Paul is busy! Jean-Paul is typing! Jean-Paul is -- damnit, does he have to hand out pens? He looks up to see if anyone needs one.

And because I really should pose more, Lilah flushes slightly, lowering her hand and mumbling slightly, "Terry was following me."

Iago pulls the pen out from behind his ear and pokes at the papers. At Isabel's question, though, he just shrugs and shakes his head. Nope.

From over in Remy's corner of the room, a distinct hint of smug satisfaction rises from his mind at Lilah's pronouncement, for all that outwardly he merely slouches comfortably and tappity-taps a pen against the edge of the table.

Madrox looks up at the ceiling. The ceiling was tailing him.

Andrew raises a couple fingers in a much more subdued hand-raise. "Terry the first day," he supplies. Then he lets his hand fall, a clear indication of the second day's lack of success in spotting whoever.

"Tom?" Isabel prompts.

"Jamie," Tom says, tipping his pen towards Madrox and then letting it drop to touch against his handout.

Terry looks up, startled for a split second, the bites her lower lip and squints over at Lilah. Aw, she doesn't have the heart to tell her. "Well. Yes, and no." Ok, maybe she did. She nods over at Andrew and grins, a bit of chagrin in the expression.

Xen pulls out a pen from his pocket, setting it on the paper in front of him. "I know that my tail wasn't Terry. But if it was LeBeau or Madrox...?" He looks a little grumpy about it, eyeing the two other men, "Jamie's probably the one I saw. I didn't get enough of a look to know without question, though."

Isabel's lips twitch just slightly and she nods to her instructors. "Tell 'em who wins a prize?"

"Both my tailees got enough of a look," if Madrox gives Tom a wholly different sort of /look/ at that, "Xen and Tom. You're both right."

"Lilah, I am sorry t'say that it wasn't -Terry- that ended up diggin' through garbage two days in a row 'cause of you," says Remy with a bow from his seat. "But y'-did- peg her that first day. We ran a parallel tail on you. Iago, I was followin' you, too, but solo."

The ghost of a smile that touches Tom's mouth as he meets the /look/ of Madrox: it's practically involuntary, drawn onto his features. He tips his head slightly and does not otherwise gloat.

"I'm not sorry about that," Terry quips, nose crinkling. "Andrew was m' assignment. And just about tackled me the first day."

A flicker of disappointment touches at Lilah's emotions at Remy's apology, the slightest touch of a frown at the corners of her mouth before it's smoothed out much like the smile. "Oh," she says, quietly.

Isabel catches that look of Tom's and arches her brows slightly before flicking her gaze toward Remy. "Alright," she says. "Who got their drop location, and who got their object?"

Iago taps his pen against the table a few times and nods at Remy, looking unsurprised by the answer, even if he does twist his lips in a bit of a rueful expression.

Xen doesn't much gloat at the confirmation of his suspicion, but simply nods respectfully back to Madrox. Good to know he's right; would have been better to know without a doubt. He looks back to Isabel, and then back to Madrox as his shoulders tense up just slightly. He /thinks/ he got away with it, but.

Andrew shakes his head, self-deprecating about Terry's comment, and more focused on throwing Lilah a sympathetic smile.

Fairly hands-off about it all, Jean-Paul almost might as well not be here -- but he is paying attention. Close attention. His gaze shifts, moving almost restlessly from person to person. He remains quite still.

Terry pulls a folded over envelope from her back pocket and puts it on the table. "Second day only."

Remy's pen stops tick-tick-ticking, and instead is flipped into his hand for use as a pointer. "Iago," he says. "Dropped hisself off a map at the Great Star Theatre's ticket booth. I got a picture of it in place, but left it lyin'" he admits, one hand reaching for a pocket, but ultimately leaving the trusty Blackberry be unless prompted for it. "Lilah..." he begins, before he shakes his head slightly, amused and impressed. "First of all, y'have a terrible devious mind. McDonald's ladies' room, it took me 'til day two t'get this, an' if I see another feminine hygeine product it's gonna be too soon." The 'this' turns out to be a souvenir spoon, fished from his pocket and set on the table. Hopefully he washed it.

"Xen. Cellphone at Barney's. Women's shoes. Digged into a lot more stores than I needed to," Madrox supplies. And then he, uh, supplies Tom's object and drop, because he knows it, but I don't.

"I should have put it in /with/ a tampon," Lilah mumbles lowly, shifting in her seat slightly to glance up at Remy and then back to Isabel.

"Everyone right?" Isabel wonders with a glance around.

Andrew winces, but with no particular surprise when Terry pulls out the envelope. His eyebrows rise as he hears about Lilah's drop location. He nods to Isabel's question.

Xen's lips twist in an amusedly disgusted expression at Remy's plight before putting his pen down on the paper in front of him a little harder than totally necessary. He nods in confirmation to Isabel, then looks over at Madrox, "Which day did you catch it?"

Lilah nods, her fingers rubbing against her jeans.

Iago nods and offers a short, mildly disgruntled, "Yeah."

"Second day," says Madrox. "You lost me the first, but I guessed from the bus sign you might actually be going to the mall." He splits his fingers apart, as if doing the veritable finger-split. "Then I double tailed you."

"Okay. So that's that out of the way," Isabel answers. She tugs a chair out with teke and then slides herself into it with a bit of a slump. "Now a few things about the exercise to point out. There are a lot of flaws here as far as mimicking a mission goes. For one, it's easier to shake a tail when you know you're being tailed. You know right away to start evasive manuevering. For another, anyone /really/ determined is probably going to try to get a tracker on you somewhere -- there are other ways to check for those. But there are ways that it's not that different, too - someone tailing you may very well know what time you're heading out, or be so dedicated that it won't matter. They may have more than one day to get the info from you, so they only need a tiny piece each time. Making a drop, maybe not, but meeting with someone, or heading back to a safe locale on mission..."

Isabel pauses for a moment, glancing around. "When we sat down as a group to talk Sunday night, what we noticed is a lot of--" Here her eyes flick to Jean-Paul, lips twitching but not quite smiling. "-- spaghetti'ing. Throwing it all at the wall and hoping something sticks. Not a bad start - and this is only a /start/. If you're on a mission and you need to be sure you're keeping your safehouse safe, that's better than nothing. But also try to keep in mind that working that way has its downsides. It means that you're probably going to make anyone watching you suspicious. And it means that it's really easy to just stop when you feel safe, because it's exhausting."

Andrew weighs his hands like they have two invisible quantities, sending one up. "What are you thinking of in opposition to that? Picking one evasive method, doing that, and then just getting on with the job?"

Terry leans forward, elbows on the table in front of her, fingers laced in front of her mouth, thumbs under her chin.

"Shit. You were the cowboy, weren't you? /And/ the hoodie." Xen frowns just slightly, pushing his pen over his paper before Isabel sits down and delivers her sortie. "What's usually the most effective, then? It's hard to /look/ casual while you're trying to watch everything around you."

Remy's pen taps once, twice... but then he turns his attention on Isabel for her answer, interest limned in the edges of his expression.

"Cowboy, hoodie. When I sicced myself on Tom, I was practically an entire track team," Madrox owns with a small head-tilt. "It's a hard balance. I sometimes find it through -- cheating. A lot."

"Ideally," Isabel answers with a faint smile, "you're evading because you've spotted your tail. And you evade because you know where he is, and you know when you've lost him. But that's something that takes a lot of time and a lot of experience. So spaghetti'ing isn't a bad start. If you were in the field trying to cover your path, the most useful thing you can do is vary your path." Her eyes flick to Xen and she tips her head. "It's hard," she agrees. "That's why you practice. If we do this again, I might have you do a week long exercise and ask you to go into town every day and pick out the one where someone was following you. It's the sort of thing you just have to do, and do, and do again."

Brows drawing slightly together, Lilah nods slowly, her own head still in her hand as her free fingers run against the jeans.

Andrew had leaned forward, frowning over the point he'd brought up, but Isabel's answer makes his face clear at least a little. He nods, and then settles back in his chair.

"I thought about that," Xen replies to Isabel. "What about having a continual exercise for the next month, missions nonwithstanding? Set some loose, long-running parameters. That might be useful in teaching us how to best pick up a tail at first."

Tom considers quietly and tips his head in an inclination, not quite a nod. He watches Isabel as she talks. Thumbs tapped against each other, he purses his lips and makes a low noise of acknowledgment in the back of his throat. "I definitely started thinking about evasion before anything alerted me," he says.

Terry nods at Tom. "Everyone did, I am thinking. Was to be expected."

Tap, tap, tap. Iago's pen is probably a little annoying. He frowns slightly, but it's a thoughtful sort of frown as he considers what has been said. "It was a worthwhile exercise. Worth it to do again, too," he opines. "Yeah. And we didn't get any practice recognizing when we were being tailed because we all expected it." He nods at Tom and Terry.

"How did you find me exactly, anyway?" Madrox levels at Tom. "The first time."

"If you really want this in detail," Isabel answers, "you need to be looking at really training for the cert. What we did here is meant to give you some really, really basic tools to put in your kit, that's all. So keep that in mind." She glances sideways then, toward Terry and Remy and Madrox. "Okay. So onto the less general. I asked your instructors to give a brief report, some highlights and lowlights. I want them to keep it generally applicable, use examples to teach the rest of you, but I highly recommend that you meet with your own tail for some one-on-one review and instruction sometime."

Curiosity brushes against Tom's thoughts at Madrox's question, Lilah questioning, << What? Found him? >> There is a soft echo of the question of whether it was telepathic.

Jean-Paul tips a finger at Isabel, making a point of underscoring, silently, the very first of her words.

Tom confirms silently to Lilah even as he explains to Madrox, "The street vendor. You walked past him. I saw that he could see someone I couldn't sense. So I checked around that vicinity until I found the cracks in your inhibitor."

As he waits to hear the reports, Andrew turns to catch Terry's eyes, and nod to her directly. Happy to meet one-on-one, his expression offers.

Terry captures her lower lip and gnaws a bit of skin off it before returning Andrew's look and scooting to the edge of her chair. She folds her arms on the table in front of her and dives in. "Andrew was good about mixing up his appearance and keeping an eye out for me. Even lost me the second day by hopping into a cab, and I could not follow immediately." She asides to Madrox, "Should have been better prepared for that tactic," before continuing, "But. While your mutation was useful as a distraction, a number of people on a crowded sidewalk experiencing the same symptoms was a give away not only to where you were, but /what/ you are."

Xen nods to both Isabel and then Jean-Paul as he reaffirms the pursuit of the certification. His pen is picked up from the paper in front of him and held loosely in his hand as his eyes track to Terry, listening to her assessment of Andrew's performance.

Listening as well, Lilah's reaction is a normal glance down towards Andrew as the agent is being talked about, her fingers picking at a loose thread on her jeans, worrying at it.

Remy gives a glance around at the other instructors, and includes Andrew in it with a moment's fishy look before gathering his thoughts in lieu of gathering physical notes. "Overall high points, I'd say Lilah did a real good job of givin' a lot of targets to pick from," he says. "Fake drops before an' after the real one meant that even f'I could rule out the first, knowin' it was outside the time window, I had to do a 50/50 guess on which o' the other two was real. Guessed wrong, as it turns out," he explains. "Had to go to day two. Now Iago, the long foot chase was a good call. Gave y'a lot of time to try an' flush me out. Goin' past the drop an' backtrackin', also good, as was pickin' that one alley with no cover -- I was damn' sure that shopkeeper was gonna burn me." Summary of the :) points made, he flips his pen through his fingers, studies the two students, and resumes for the :( ones. "Now, room t'work on, I would say that y'got almost too clever, Lilah. Y'come up with some good schemes, but when they seemed to work out f'you y'got relaxed. And Iago, y'might want to make more use o' stops an' starts to flush folks out -- crowded shoppin' district like that, y'got a lot of options to make someone follow you t'where y'can either pick 'em out or lose 'em. An' the both of you didn't pay much attention to things on the other side o' the street from you. But... all in all, y'both showed some good spaghetti."

Andrew winces once more. "Good point," he admits. "I can try switching to one person, disrupt traffic without being so obvious, maybe?" He looks first at Terry, then at Isabel.

Isabel responds to Terry with a nod and tip of her head adding, "And remember that if a tail is suspicious but not confident that you have something to hide, doing the really obvious shit is a good way to make it /clear/ that you're a worthwhile target."

"Damn," Madrox says with a small snort. "That's clever. And that is where Tom excelled, really. If I found a way around his mutation, like an inhibitor, if I did my best to make sure he didn't see me and /notice/ a gap, he created his own form of psychic surveillence. And I got around it by being obnoxiously too many for him to track. Where he /didn't/ excel," and Madrox raises his hand, "was in applying more mundane stealth techniques quite so doggedly. And fuzzing my perceptions isn't the most unobvious tactic if your tailer knows who he's tailing." A beat and, "Xen, on the other hand, really practiced those mundane stealth techniques and was legitimately rough to track. He changed up his appearance, he used reflections, he ducked into more stores than were terribly feasible to track him into. But if Tom sometimes got careless, Xen was maybe a little careful. He crossed streets against traffic when he didn't have to and paid maybe a little /too/ much attention now and again. However, on the whole," Madrox clap-claps, "you were both /remarkably/ exhausting and I had to push at /my/ mutation to keep track of you. So good job."

Lilah flickers a smile, small and abrupt, before her hand covers her mouth. Congratulations is offered silently to Tom as Madrox summarized, her gaze sliding towards the other telepath and then towards Zen and Iago as well.

Tom sets his teeth against the knuckle of one hand, largely obscuring the expression of his mouth. He turns thoughtful eyes between the teachers and exhales a long, low breath past his nose. He says, a little dry, "I discovered it's a lot harder to be inobtrusive without human shields around. That worked against Jamie, too. I couldn't have done that shit at high noon."

Terry tips her hand up to Andrew's question, lips pressing into a wavering line before listening in on the others. "Don't blame you for being exhausted," she notes of Madrox's tale.

Isabel's lips twist slightly as she leans back into her chair. "All in all," she says, "I think pretty much a success. I think now is the time for questions."

Iago should maybe be taking notes or something instead of tapping his pen, but, oh well. "Ah, the other side of the street. Yeah, I never got a really good look at you with that shopkeeper...but I remember that," He says to Remy with a nod. He taps his pen hard once before stopping and looking thoughtful.

"I look forward to sleeping tonight," Madrox says in a mock complaint, but gives both Xen and and Tom deep nods in turn.

Tom grins in a bright flash of white. "Sorry, buddy," he says. He doesn't sound very sorry.

"Question -- can I get the pair o' you a beer?" Remy wonders of Iago and Lilah with a flicker of a grin, before he settles in his seat to make way for more serious inquiries. (Although beer is ttly serious.)

Xen nods again to Madrox at the assessment and then praise, grinning slightly at the mock complaint. He settles back against the chair and chews on the back end of his pen thoughtfully. "What could I have done that might have been a little better at spotting the tail? I was already looking, and we knew who were the possibilities, but-- if I don't know the person, what's better to be looking at? General behavior, or general appearance?"

"Behavior," Isabel answers instantly. "The point of a good tail is that they don't look suspicious - or dangerous. But someone who's with you in a store and down the next street and into an alley-- that's suspicious."

Jean-Paul glances across the instructors, Isabel, and leaves the question to them like a super delegator. Or a total lazy ass. It's amazing how similar the two look, innit?

"Is there any way to figure out if you're being double tailed or not, other than, you know, spotting them both?" Lilah questions softly, her fingers drifting away from her mouth so she can ask it clearly. Her lips curve up briefly at Remy too, telepathy extending to offer a << Yes >> directly into his thoughts.

"Being observant is a skill that has to be practiced. And is intentional," Terry says, shifting her chin to one hand now that formal-speak time is over.

Iago chuckles and inclines his head towards Remy. "Only if I can get you one in turn," he quips before looking at Isabel and nodding his head at her answer, taking mental notes. Behavior.

Remy drops his pen, a soft, surprised chuff of breath knocked loose from him at the tele-dropped word. He snabbles it back up again, but doesn't twirl it anew. "F'a double tail," he suggests. "If you make one, and they shift around and leave y'uncovered for stretches o' time, see if those stretches would line up to someone else fillin' them in."

Isabel nods to Terry, and Lilah. "Doublt tailed is harder," she allows. "And someone's not likely to do it unless they /really/ want you. But again, you're looking for recurrences. If they're ones that seem coincidental - how'd he end up here when I didn't see him for five blocks - consider that he might be working with someone else." She pauses, glances briefly to Jean-Paul. "And you'll notice that the further you're going, the more time you have to notice suspicious shit. So if you're really trying to keep someone off your tail, keep that in mind."

"This isn't a question," Tom prefaces what he is about to say, "but if you ever do have to tail a telepath. Blank spots are suspicious. People with songs stuck in their head, less so. You're more at risk if you get caught, but maybe less likely to be caught." He tips his hand, glancing at Madrox with a quirk at his lips. "If you're not trailing, you know, somebody you hang out with on a daily basis. I don't know," he adds, like there might be a question growing there, but he doesn't seem to have quite figured it out yet.

A smile not quite manifesting on his lips, Jean-Paul nods to Isabel as she makes her points, and secondarily nods toward the other instructors. Tom's point draws his attention more so than the rest, and he leans forward. "Easy in theory, hard in practice. We could generally use more practice at staying beneath a telepath's radar, I think -- not just in covert, but across the base. How many other people have had the same experience with learning what a compulsion feels like?" Tangent? TANGENT.

"Not on -- you know," Lilah answers, shaking her head with a curious glance thrown towards Tom as she considers the thought, rising curiosity as she rolls it over.

"You would've known me immediately, right," Madrox says with a small dipped nod. "Xen was difficult, too, because there came a point where I had to get close to see what he's doing. Known quantities. Of course. Now I know what being fuzzed feels like."

Isabel fixes on Tom, and at Jean-Paul's question she shivers slightly, involuntarily and murmurs, "Something to think about."

Tom shakes his head slightly, something of a grimace skewing his mouth. "I've talked about doing it with people more than I've done it," he says. "I guess I could draft the others into service and spread it out." He glances at Lilah with an arch to his eyebrows. He says, "I wasn't as subtle with Jamie as I could've been. Kind of sloppy, really," he adds, idly self-critical. "It takes a lot of work getting through an inhibitor and it's easy to get pretty impatient by the time you're done."

Remy merely looks uncomfortable, twitching in his seat and studying his pen intently. It appears to be from the school of Shiny Things From Gambit's Pockets.

Terry turns her hand palm up, hovering it just over the table's surface. It's neither a yes or a no.

"We have the telepaths to spare," Jean-Paul says with a gesture that includes Tom and Lilah. His hand falls again to his keyboard, and point made, subsides.

Xen's face darkens slightly at Jean-Paul's question. Fortunately, his mind has remained unblemished thus far, but the thought of it doesn't make him happy.

"Training, though," Isabel says, dry and quiet, "for another day." She scrapes her chair back slightly, glancing across the group. "Okay," she says. "Like I said, I encourage you to talk with your tailer. I /really/ encourage you to think about training up to the full cert if you've got the time. So, you know. Thanks for coming, all that."

<< You should try it. On me, >> Lilah answers to the arch of brows, something slightly eager as the corners of her mouth turn up slightly. << So I can know what it would feel like from the other side. >> Her focuse on Tom subsides at hearing her name, however, her gaze sliding to Jean-Paul with an agreeable nod.

Madrox nods at Tom and looks away with a flicker of something dark and half-sourceless. "Good practice for us, too. Thanks."

<< Sure, >> Tom says to Lilah with a blink of surprise. << Do you know how to defend against a telepathic attack? I better show you pretty soon if you don't. >> He scrubs his hand over his face and clears his throat. "Uhm," he says, "anyway. Yeah."

Iago raises his brows at Jean-Paul, and then glances over at Tom and Lilah before he looks over to Isabel finally as she dismisses them, more of less. "Thanks for taking the time to do something like this. All of you."

Jean-Paul looks a little more thoughtful, and appends to Isabel's encouragement: "Evaluate your time honestly. If you don't have the time to focus on it, getting a thorough grounding in the basics is a better use of all of our time." He is a fun-killer.

"Thank you, Isabel," Lilah offers softly, genuine appreciation in the words as she rolls back in her chair while gathering her folded paper and pen. Multitasking, she answers Tom silently, << I've never really met any others--My grandmother had some, but just thoughts and stuff. She wasn't like you or me. >>

"Good exercise. Do more," Remy approves, with a flash of a smile as the pen is pocketed. "Lilah, Iago, y'all look me up whenever y'got a spare hour."

<< Okay, >> Tom says. << I'll show you later. >> He doesn't move to get out of his chair yet, tipping his head at a cant as he considers Jean-Paul and Isabel with a slide of his gaze going over both of them.

Terry rises, but instead of leaving the room, she ambles around the table toward Jean-Paul. Taking a deep breath, she lifts her brows expectantly and waits--for about half a second. "So, how did /I/ do?"

Jean-Paul turns his laptop around for Terry's inspection. Waiting on the screen is that certification paperwork mentioned way back in the beginning of the scene. It is only waiting for an enter. "You qualify. Still a few things you might want to work on, here and there, to help, but we talked about that."

"You're welcome," Isabel answers in reply meant, apparently, to cover the batch at a whole. She braces hands on the arms of her chair and pushes herself up to stand, pausing just long enough to arch her back in a stretch.

Madrox folds his arms and leans back a bit, darkness passed. "And let me know if either of you want to kick around some more. I can always spare a me."

Xen sits up in his seat as Isabel does, the clear indication that the meeting is at an end for now. "Thanks for setting it up," is addressed to Isabel before his eyes flit over to Jean-Paul thoughtfully. He pushes up from his chair and wanders over Madrox-wards, "Let's catch up in the next few days, shall we?"

Assent touches Remy's mind again absently as Lilah offers a goodbye against Tom's, a pleasure held there at his promise and agreement. Then she moves to leave, silently, sliding her things into her back pocket.

Madrox glances up and over at Xen. "Sure. Just let me know."

Terry's hesitation melts into a bright smile, followed swiftly by some sobering and a nod. "Thank you," she says, glancing toward Isabel to include her as well.

Iago picks up his papers, nods at Remy, tucks his pen behind his ear and slides out of his seat. "Will do, Remy," he says with a smile that then gets flashes around the rest of the room before he heads for the door. "See ya around." Naturally.

Isabel's eyes flick toward Terry and she gives her a brief grin before she slides around the table for the door.

Jean-Paul's lip quirks, a quick smile answering Terry's brighter version. He nods shortly, and pulls his laptop back around to hit enter. Paperwork filed. He glances across the room as people gather their things and file out. He is slow to find his feet.

Remy is left twitching again as Lilah departs, a shiver down his spine at the brush against his brain, before he shakes it off and hops over his desk to go fetch up by Terry with a speculative lift of his eyebrows. "So," he says to her. "This call f'a celebratory drink?"

Terry scoots around Jean-Paul's chair, a hand landing briefly on his shoulder as she moves. Maybe she meant to touch his chair instead. WHO KNOWS. It is there and gone nonetheless as she moves for the door as well. Remy's answer is a reappearance of her grin.

Taking his pen in hand and twirling it, Tom finally unfolds from his perch, sneakers thunking into the floor as he blows a snort. "Catch you later, Jamie," he says with specificity. He glances at the others, tipping his head slightly to Jean-Paul in particular, and then heads off on quick strides out of the room.

Madrox twiddles his fingers after Tom, and remains where he is. He is watching the other side of the table obliquely.

After confirmation by Madrox, Xen turns and steps out into the hallway, heading back out.

Although Jean-Paul does glance in Madrox's direction as the crowd thins, it isn't a MEANINGFUL STARE, okay?? It is a glance, a smile, and then a tip of his head in greeting before he finally rises to pack away his computer. So there.

Madrox remains where he is. Maybe he isn't trying to stare down anyone. He's kind of looking past Jean-Paul to the wall with an abstracted half-frown. Okay, he is meditating, then. Ignore him.

Okay. Jean-Paul ignores him, and leaves the room to Madrox -- with maybe one last glance back. An imperfect ignore.

Madrox drums his fingers against the table. At length, he finally leaves himself.

Training debrief.