Assignment out of the blue
Is she serious? Asking me to cover her "mutants, yay!" rally? That's . . . I don't know what that is, but it's fishy, let's say.
Use the conservative journalist for publicity. Okay, that's a decent angle. She probably doesn't give a rat's ass about "reforming" me to her side of things, not when she could just plant a suggestion in my head with me none the wiser. Shiny happy Leah! Obedient and helpful reporter!
Hell. How do I know she didn't do that tonight? I don't. I really don't.
That finger-point of hers - okay, intellectually I knew that she wasn't going to go all Scanners on me, but shit. A girl's allowed to think it for a sec, right? She picked up on it, I'm sure. Well, sorry, Dr. Grey, but that's the way the mutant cookie crumbles. Excuse a poor normal human being, please. I can crawl only so far up the evolutionary scale to touch the hem of your shining white robes.
Well, at least it's work. I'll call Jaz and Terry tomorrow about video backup and publication options. The old-girls network rides to the rescue again.
8/23/2005
Logfile from Leah.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bad Ass Coffee
The decor is one of tropical paradise. There are potted ferns and mini-palms in every nook and cranny, while the walls are painted a cheerful yellow and as much green or wooden decorations as possible have been added. Opposite the door is the counter where you order, a long line of giant cookie jars leading you to the register. Behind the counter are a plethora of tea leaves and coffee grounds, purchaseable brewed by the cup of packaged by the pound! You can get just about any kind of herbal tea, coffee, cinnamon bun, muffin, cookie, cake, pie, soup, chili, or sandwich here. They serve the works, all at really cheap prices. All around the open area are tall wooden tables with wooden barstools set around them, and off in each corner is a green couch and two matching armchairs. Up on a raised dias to the left is the smoking area, sealed off into it's own room with plexiglass windows and filled with similar tables and barstools. This place is the hangout of the altervative crowd -- artists, goths, punks, and the like. The people are friendly and the music is good -- enjoy!
--
One nice thing about becoming a regular face in her corner of The Village is that Jean is getting better at knowing when and how to get a free table at Yon Local Hip Coffee Shop. Accordingly, at around 9 PM, right in the lull between after-work and going-out crowds, she's taken posession of a table for four, extra space taken up by a laptop and some papers in addition to the ridiculously large cup of coffee she's drinking with a reverential air. Her reading glasses have slid halfway down her nose, and her hair is held back in an absent minded twist, courtesy of a pencil she's been absently looking for for the past few minutes.
The lull delivers one out-of-work journalist to the coffee shop on time and on her very best behavior. Leah's even dressed up a bit, to the quiet tune of a hunter-green pantsuit, ivory silk shell blouse, and firm, stolid shoes to match her leather attache. Once inside the door, she pauses only a breath before locating the right table and pointing herself that way. "Dr. Grey." Quiet, contained alto -- rather more contained than the fuzzy static of her mind's surface aspect, in fact. She produces a smile, even. "Hope I'm not too late."
"Oh, not at all," Jean assures, taking a moment to complete one last sentence in Word before she punches ctrl-s and looks up to smile and offer Leah a handshake. "Amazingly enough, I get to go home and sleep after this, so late wouldn't be a problem even if you were. Coffee?" she asks, waving a hand at the chalked out menu up above the counter. "I've heard they do interesting things with spices." She pauses and brings up a few new windows and ruffles through some of the papers, twiddling the black armband busy making a quiet statement and getting her thoughts into order. "But it's just a little matter I wanted to ask you about, since I was impressed with your Rolling Stone article, and I haven't seen you on the news lately."
Leah duly produces a handshake, too, and then sits. "No, thanks, I'm good. Maybe later," she tries, hanging onto the smile as she lets her case slip to rest against her leg. That accomplished, she folds her hands nicely in her lap and blinks across the table. Also nicely. "Oh, well, thank you. And thank you again for the interview and information you supplied me. It was very helpful, obviously." She pokes through a hesitation for more words. "In fact, I suppose I couldn't have done it all without you, and I'm only too happy to pass along the credit where credit's due. I just wrote the thing; you're the one doing all the hard work on the ground, right?" And no talk at all about her work, and its lack, though her mind clouds, darkens.
"Hardly the only one. Just a little better looking than your average rabid and fuzzy liberal, so I get more air time." Jean quips, expression all too dryly aware of the fact that the nation does love its beautiful people. "I bathe and leave the patchouli cigarettes in the store. But if you can clear some space in your schedule, I was wondering if you'd like to do some coverage for a little event I've got planned."
Leah's smile shades polite for the quip, giving it its professional due. "I might have some space, Doctor. What did you have in mind, exactly? Not a love-in, surely..."
"I'm having a little march on the 27th," Jean explains. "Calling it a Walk for Unity because that's nicely PC, because 'Mutant Rights' would bring out the extremists, and also because I got in trouble with a couple people who thought I was stealing the 'Gay Pride' when I tried 'Mutant Pride'. Anyways," she concludes her little adventure in nomenclature and sums up, punctuating with a gulp of black coffee, "I want coverage. The news is all over anything that blows up and throwing 'mutant' in with it wherever possible, so I'm having a nice peaceful little walk for folks of any genetic arrangement, and a big barbeque at the end of the march route. A local community vegetable garden's donating space and tomatos."
Ah, the struggle between reporterly fascination (scoop! scoop! whee!) and baser reaction (freaks! twee! not-whee!). Leah hoards most of it behind her expression's mask. Good for her. "That sounds nice," she says at the end. "More fighting the good fight, huh? But -- I'm sorry, Dr. Grey, I'm not actually employed by anyone right now." Focus on that, focus on /that,/ and away from the baseness-- She grimaces, shrugs. "Not even as a stringer, although maybe I could talk to a couple people I know at the Times, or the Post... What are you looking for, exactly? Besides positive coverage, of course."
"Well, if you're not employed by anyone right now, then you'll be glad to know that the food is free," points out Jean with a briefly crooked smirk, locator of silver linings within storm clouds since 1975. "And I don't care about positive so much as balanced. You did that with your article. And honestly, if I noise about that I've awarded official print coverage to one Leah Canto, I'm sure someone will pick you up."
"Just being seen with you in public might be enough," mutters that Leah Canto. She does make a little wincing smile of apology, at least. "Yes, no doubt, no doubt. I'll make some calls. Do you need -- hmm. Photos, video...? Straight copy's no problem; I can handle that."
"Trust me, if I could get recloseted, I would," Jean states wryly, before waving off the apology as accepted and handing Leah a little stapled information package. "And if you know people that would be interested in visual media coverage, feel free to hand them my contact information. I'd prefer to let the local people get the initial coverage so that the big networks actually have to work for their stories and share some of the wealth. Trickle-down economy with a bit of a suction pump?"
"It's how we work," Leah agrees, distracted but wry, too, while she flips through the info. "Free food alone should bring out the hordes. I'll talk to my friends at the Post about photogs, and I'll put in a call to the Times. Got an editor who owes me one." Her smile surfs briefly on heavy, black bitterness that nevertheless doesn't quite reach her eyes, rising to meet Jean's. "We can let the cable nets fight for their own share of the pie. No problem with /that,/ from this reporter."
"If we must live in Corporate America, let us at least fight The Man now and again." Jean sums up, nursing more of her coffee. "But that sounds good. Bring a good pair of walking shoes if you want to join the march, otherwise the barbque should be starting up at around 1 PM. For background, I expect a couple hundred people, but only about a couple dozen will actually be mutants. Too scarce of a group to make our own parade."
Leah comments, "And we mustn't upset those Gay Pride people. Did they really give you crap over that?" She leans over again for her case, slipping the info package inside. Her voice rises from there on a musing lilt: "You'd think minority groups would stick together a little more."
"Well, the president of one particular local LBGTQ group -- and I swear one of these days, I'm going to accidentally end that acronym with 'BBQ' and end up flamed to bare ground -- was somewhat miffed. He's not indicative of the whole group by any means of course," Jean allows, ever the diplomat, "But I think in his case he was pissed off that gay issues had been replaced by mutant issues as headlines in a lot of the local alternative mags. And given that mutants mirror the rest of the population as far as orientation breakdown goes, there aren't enough gay mutants for him to interview."
Leah dismisses, "It's the latest hot analogy for 'oppressed and/or misunderstood and/or rebelling against the Establishment' that pop-psychologists and poli-sci talking heads like to make. Talk about objectifying -- I've seen some of those mags. The stories in 'em. The Mutant has replaced The Gay as the fringe's favorite symbol, all right, and it's a better world for it, isn't it?" Honest contempt pulls her mouth in a bow's bend, and there's plenty more arrows in that quiver. But she keeps them there and just sits back in her seat, a little more relaxed. "Maybe you'll get a gay mutant at your event. Send him or her that guy's way."
"A double helix is harder to draw than two male or two female symbols interlocked, or rainbow triangles, alas." Full of quips tonight is Dr. Jean Grey. Quips and caffeine and dry, dry humour. "But I suppose that's always the way. Make a few leaps forward, and from the public point of view, the battle is won, on to the next minority group. We'll probably wind up marching for the rights of Bavarian cheesemakers by the time I'm ninety."
"I'm sure you would do a splendid job," Leah assures her. "You could paint a pretty flag. With a big cow on it."
"I use 'we' in the general sense," Jean points out with another crooked smirk. "If we ever get to the point of marching for cheesemakers' rights, I am retiring and moving to Martinique. Or, to be honest, probably still working on mutant rights. My father was down with the desegregation crowd, and still gets incensed over racial discrimination issues."
Leah twitches a little straighter (is that possible? Apparently, despite her wee relaxation) in her chair. "I met your father! I mean -- sorry." She grins, a moment of honest, open reaction, however rueful for the outburst. "I met him at Grand Central. Great guy; I liked him. He promised me an exclusive interview when he publishes this mysterious book he might never actually write. Still, it was nice of him to offer."
"Dad talking to strangers again?" Jean wonders, eyes lighting behind her reading glasses with intensely filial fondness and a certain measure of professional respect. "I know the childhood lesson on that in the Grey household generally included a measure of 'do as I say, not as I do'. But he's a great guy." A contented nod, and an equally contented sip of her coffee accompany this character judgement. "And I say that as more than just his daughter."
Leah admits, "I taught him profanity. Erudite profanity, but profanity still. He seemed to enjoy it. I corrupted your father a very small bit, Dr. Grey. I'm sorry."
Jean snorts, and wonders "Asshaberdashery?" with a sudden enlightened look and a finger-point.
Ah, if only the flash of terrified panic didn't come first (a point! a point!), ahead of Leah's abashed grin and ducked head. "Guilty as charged, ma'am."
Jean can't quite stop the flicker of bleak resignation that crosses her features as a simple, playful point is misinterpreted. The offending finger lowers with alacrity, and it's with an end to the purely open lightness that Jean smiles next. "Well, if he slips up and uses it around my mother at sunday dinner, you'll have made that future evening for me, so I suppose I'll have to thank you for it. Now, before I sidetrack us completely with random gabble about my family, do you need anything else as background information beyond that little precis?"
After a moment of thought, Leah shakes her head. "It's enough to get me going. I think I still have your email address if anything comes up...." Hesitation. Again. No panic, but genuine don't-spook-the-source trepidation and even some honest-to-God manners. "If you don't mind if I use it, I mean. I know you're busy. Obviously."
"Keep it to yourself," Jean cautions. "But feel free to use it, and to use my cell phone number, whatever works for you." With a smile, she notes that "I've learned it's best to keep reporters happy. But feel free to let me know if anything comes up, Leah. I'm afraid I'll probably have to head off soon, though."
"Not a problem, not a problem. My lips are sealed," and Leah even does the key-turning-and-tossing-away thing with pinching fingers and clamped mouth. (Clamped mind, not so much: << Not that it matters with /your/ powers-- >> drifts in wary, dissipating whisper.) The mouth smiles then; so do the pale eyes above them. "And I should head home, myself, actually. You've dropped a big story in my lap, and I have a busy day ahead of me tomorrow, don't I? Thank you, Doctor." She snorts. "My landlord thanks you, too. And my credit-card company. And so on."
"You're welcome." And, with the precision and timing a trained actress would envy, not a whit of Jean's feelings on that sibilant whisper of thought escapes. Strange bedfellows. Strange bedfellows indeed. Jean smiles, light and pleasant, and offers Leah a final handshake to seal the bargain and seal the evening. "And make sure to eat lots of free barbecue. Good night, Ms. Leah Canto, and good luck."
Sealed, indeed: the shake done, Leah adds a firm nod. "Thank you. Let's just hope that neither of us needs any luck. Smooth sailing, Dr. Grey. Smooth sailing." Like what she's doing out the door, her attention already fizzing into busy working excitement.
[Log ends.]
Use the conservative journalist for publicity. Okay, that's a decent angle. She probably doesn't give a rat's ass about "reforming" me to her side of things, not when she could just plant a suggestion in my head with me none the wiser. Shiny happy Leah! Obedient and helpful reporter!
Hell. How do I know she didn't do that tonight? I don't. I really don't.
That finger-point of hers - okay, intellectually I knew that she wasn't going to go all Scanners on me, but shit. A girl's allowed to think it for a sec, right? She picked up on it, I'm sure. Well, sorry, Dr. Grey, but that's the way the mutant cookie crumbles. Excuse a poor normal human being, please. I can crawl only so far up the evolutionary scale to touch the hem of your shining white robes.
Well, at least it's work. I'll call Jaz and Terry tomorrow about video backup and publication options. The old-girls network rides to the rescue again.
8/23/2005
Logfile from Leah.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bad Ass Coffee
The decor is one of tropical paradise. There are potted ferns and mini-palms in every nook and cranny, while the walls are painted a cheerful yellow and as much green or wooden decorations as possible have been added. Opposite the door is the counter where you order, a long line of giant cookie jars leading you to the register. Behind the counter are a plethora of tea leaves and coffee grounds, purchaseable brewed by the cup of packaged by the pound! You can get just about any kind of herbal tea, coffee, cinnamon bun, muffin, cookie, cake, pie, soup, chili, or sandwich here. They serve the works, all at really cheap prices. All around the open area are tall wooden tables with wooden barstools set around them, and off in each corner is a green couch and two matching armchairs. Up on a raised dias to the left is the smoking area, sealed off into it's own room with plexiglass windows and filled with similar tables and barstools. This place is the hangout of the altervative crowd -- artists, goths, punks, and the like. The people are friendly and the music is good -- enjoy!
--
One nice thing about becoming a regular face in her corner of The Village is that Jean is getting better at knowing when and how to get a free table at Yon Local Hip Coffee Shop. Accordingly, at around 9 PM, right in the lull between after-work and going-out crowds, she's taken posession of a table for four, extra space taken up by a laptop and some papers in addition to the ridiculously large cup of coffee she's drinking with a reverential air. Her reading glasses have slid halfway down her nose, and her hair is held back in an absent minded twist, courtesy of a pencil she's been absently looking for for the past few minutes.
The lull delivers one out-of-work journalist to the coffee shop on time and on her very best behavior. Leah's even dressed up a bit, to the quiet tune of a hunter-green pantsuit, ivory silk shell blouse, and firm, stolid shoes to match her leather attache. Once inside the door, she pauses only a breath before locating the right table and pointing herself that way. "Dr. Grey." Quiet, contained alto -- rather more contained than the fuzzy static of her mind's surface aspect, in fact. She produces a smile, even. "Hope I'm not too late."
"Oh, not at all," Jean assures, taking a moment to complete one last sentence in Word before she punches ctrl-s and looks up to smile and offer Leah a handshake. "Amazingly enough, I get to go home and sleep after this, so late wouldn't be a problem even if you were. Coffee?" she asks, waving a hand at the chalked out menu up above the counter. "I've heard they do interesting things with spices." She pauses and brings up a few new windows and ruffles through some of the papers, twiddling the black armband busy making a quiet statement and getting her thoughts into order. "But it's just a little matter I wanted to ask you about, since I was impressed with your Rolling Stone article, and I haven't seen you on the news lately."
Leah duly produces a handshake, too, and then sits. "No, thanks, I'm good. Maybe later," she tries, hanging onto the smile as she lets her case slip to rest against her leg. That accomplished, she folds her hands nicely in her lap and blinks across the table. Also nicely. "Oh, well, thank you. And thank you again for the interview and information you supplied me. It was very helpful, obviously." She pokes through a hesitation for more words. "In fact, I suppose I couldn't have done it all without you, and I'm only too happy to pass along the credit where credit's due. I just wrote the thing; you're the one doing all the hard work on the ground, right?" And no talk at all about her work, and its lack, though her mind clouds, darkens.
"Hardly the only one. Just a little better looking than your average rabid and fuzzy liberal, so I get more air time." Jean quips, expression all too dryly aware of the fact that the nation does love its beautiful people. "I bathe and leave the patchouli cigarettes in the store. But if you can clear some space in your schedule, I was wondering if you'd like to do some coverage for a little event I've got planned."
Leah's smile shades polite for the quip, giving it its professional due. "I might have some space, Doctor. What did you have in mind, exactly? Not a love-in, surely..."
"I'm having a little march on the 27th," Jean explains. "Calling it a Walk for Unity because that's nicely PC, because 'Mutant Rights' would bring out the extremists, and also because I got in trouble with a couple people who thought I was stealing the 'Gay Pride' when I tried 'Mutant Pride'. Anyways," she concludes her little adventure in nomenclature and sums up, punctuating with a gulp of black coffee, "I want coverage. The news is all over anything that blows up and throwing 'mutant' in with it wherever possible, so I'm having a nice peaceful little walk for folks of any genetic arrangement, and a big barbeque at the end of the march route. A local community vegetable garden's donating space and tomatos."
Ah, the struggle between reporterly fascination (scoop! scoop! whee!) and baser reaction (freaks! twee! not-whee!). Leah hoards most of it behind her expression's mask. Good for her. "That sounds nice," she says at the end. "More fighting the good fight, huh? But -- I'm sorry, Dr. Grey, I'm not actually employed by anyone right now." Focus on that, focus on /that,/ and away from the baseness-- She grimaces, shrugs. "Not even as a stringer, although maybe I could talk to a couple people I know at the Times, or the Post... What are you looking for, exactly? Besides positive coverage, of course."
"Well, if you're not employed by anyone right now, then you'll be glad to know that the food is free," points out Jean with a briefly crooked smirk, locator of silver linings within storm clouds since 1975. "And I don't care about positive so much as balanced. You did that with your article. And honestly, if I noise about that I've awarded official print coverage to one Leah Canto, I'm sure someone will pick you up."
"Just being seen with you in public might be enough," mutters that Leah Canto. She does make a little wincing smile of apology, at least. "Yes, no doubt, no doubt. I'll make some calls. Do you need -- hmm. Photos, video...? Straight copy's no problem; I can handle that."
"Trust me, if I could get recloseted, I would," Jean states wryly, before waving off the apology as accepted and handing Leah a little stapled information package. "And if you know people that would be interested in visual media coverage, feel free to hand them my contact information. I'd prefer to let the local people get the initial coverage so that the big networks actually have to work for their stories and share some of the wealth. Trickle-down economy with a bit of a suction pump?"
"It's how we work," Leah agrees, distracted but wry, too, while she flips through the info. "Free food alone should bring out the hordes. I'll talk to my friends at the Post about photogs, and I'll put in a call to the Times. Got an editor who owes me one." Her smile surfs briefly on heavy, black bitterness that nevertheless doesn't quite reach her eyes, rising to meet Jean's. "We can let the cable nets fight for their own share of the pie. No problem with /that,/ from this reporter."
"If we must live in Corporate America, let us at least fight The Man now and again." Jean sums up, nursing more of her coffee. "But that sounds good. Bring a good pair of walking shoes if you want to join the march, otherwise the barbque should be starting up at around 1 PM. For background, I expect a couple hundred people, but only about a couple dozen will actually be mutants. Too scarce of a group to make our own parade."
Leah comments, "And we mustn't upset those Gay Pride people. Did they really give you crap over that?" She leans over again for her case, slipping the info package inside. Her voice rises from there on a musing lilt: "You'd think minority groups would stick together a little more."
"Well, the president of one particular local LBGTQ group -- and I swear one of these days, I'm going to accidentally end that acronym with 'BBQ' and end up flamed to bare ground -- was somewhat miffed. He's not indicative of the whole group by any means of course," Jean allows, ever the diplomat, "But I think in his case he was pissed off that gay issues had been replaced by mutant issues as headlines in a lot of the local alternative mags. And given that mutants mirror the rest of the population as far as orientation breakdown goes, there aren't enough gay mutants for him to interview."
Leah dismisses, "It's the latest hot analogy for 'oppressed and/or misunderstood and/or rebelling against the Establishment' that pop-psychologists and poli-sci talking heads like to make. Talk about objectifying -- I've seen some of those mags. The stories in 'em. The Mutant has replaced The Gay as the fringe's favorite symbol, all right, and it's a better world for it, isn't it?" Honest contempt pulls her mouth in a bow's bend, and there's plenty more arrows in that quiver. But she keeps them there and just sits back in her seat, a little more relaxed. "Maybe you'll get a gay mutant at your event. Send him or her that guy's way."
"A double helix is harder to draw than two male or two female symbols interlocked, or rainbow triangles, alas." Full of quips tonight is Dr. Jean Grey. Quips and caffeine and dry, dry humour. "But I suppose that's always the way. Make a few leaps forward, and from the public point of view, the battle is won, on to the next minority group. We'll probably wind up marching for the rights of Bavarian cheesemakers by the time I'm ninety."
"I'm sure you would do a splendid job," Leah assures her. "You could paint a pretty flag. With a big cow on it."
"I use 'we' in the general sense," Jean points out with another crooked smirk. "If we ever get to the point of marching for cheesemakers' rights, I am retiring and moving to Martinique. Or, to be honest, probably still working on mutant rights. My father was down with the desegregation crowd, and still gets incensed over racial discrimination issues."
Leah twitches a little straighter (is that possible? Apparently, despite her wee relaxation) in her chair. "I met your father! I mean -- sorry." She grins, a moment of honest, open reaction, however rueful for the outburst. "I met him at Grand Central. Great guy; I liked him. He promised me an exclusive interview when he publishes this mysterious book he might never actually write. Still, it was nice of him to offer."
"Dad talking to strangers again?" Jean wonders, eyes lighting behind her reading glasses with intensely filial fondness and a certain measure of professional respect. "I know the childhood lesson on that in the Grey household generally included a measure of 'do as I say, not as I do'. But he's a great guy." A contented nod, and an equally contented sip of her coffee accompany this character judgement. "And I say that as more than just his daughter."
Leah admits, "I taught him profanity. Erudite profanity, but profanity still. He seemed to enjoy it. I corrupted your father a very small bit, Dr. Grey. I'm sorry."
Jean snorts, and wonders "Asshaberdashery?" with a sudden enlightened look and a finger-point.
Ah, if only the flash of terrified panic didn't come first (a point! a point!), ahead of Leah's abashed grin and ducked head. "Guilty as charged, ma'am."
Jean can't quite stop the flicker of bleak resignation that crosses her features as a simple, playful point is misinterpreted. The offending finger lowers with alacrity, and it's with an end to the purely open lightness that Jean smiles next. "Well, if he slips up and uses it around my mother at sunday dinner, you'll have made that future evening for me, so I suppose I'll have to thank you for it. Now, before I sidetrack us completely with random gabble about my family, do you need anything else as background information beyond that little precis?"
After a moment of thought, Leah shakes her head. "It's enough to get me going. I think I still have your email address if anything comes up...." Hesitation. Again. No panic, but genuine don't-spook-the-source trepidation and even some honest-to-God manners. "If you don't mind if I use it, I mean. I know you're busy. Obviously."
"Keep it to yourself," Jean cautions. "But feel free to use it, and to use my cell phone number, whatever works for you." With a smile, she notes that "I've learned it's best to keep reporters happy. But feel free to let me know if anything comes up, Leah. I'm afraid I'll probably have to head off soon, though."
"Not a problem, not a problem. My lips are sealed," and Leah even does the key-turning-and-tossing-away thing with pinching fingers and clamped mouth. (Clamped mind, not so much: << Not that it matters with /your/ powers-- >> drifts in wary, dissipating whisper.) The mouth smiles then; so do the pale eyes above them. "And I should head home, myself, actually. You've dropped a big story in my lap, and I have a busy day ahead of me tomorrow, don't I? Thank you, Doctor." She snorts. "My landlord thanks you, too. And my credit-card company. And so on."
"You're welcome." And, with the precision and timing a trained actress would envy, not a whit of Jean's feelings on that sibilant whisper of thought escapes. Strange bedfellows. Strange bedfellows indeed. Jean smiles, light and pleasant, and offers Leah a final handshake to seal the bargain and seal the evening. "And make sure to eat lots of free barbecue. Good night, Ms. Leah Canto, and good luck."
Sealed, indeed: the shake done, Leah adds a firm nod. "Thank you. Let's just hope that neither of us needs any luck. Smooth sailing, Dr. Grey. Smooth sailing." Like what she's doing out the door, her attention already fizzing into busy working excitement.
[Log ends.]