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Timekeeper	The St. Pavlov Foundation food court is inescapably busy at all hours of the day. Even overnight, though the majority of its windows are shuttered, alcoves gated off, chairs flipped upright on top of their tables, there's always a corner where the lights remain on. In this circadean haze of marble and concrete, the ten thousand-odd employees of the campus can't possibly all stick to a normal sleeping schedule, so warm food stays available through the latest hours of the night.     It's not quite that late yet. Simple bureaucratic requests from Madam Z borrowed some of your evening time, and while she and Sonetto are processing papers-- documentation involving their personal stake in the investigations, history with the Foundation, Flamel's memory machine, among other dreary things-- she suggested taking advantage of a free dinner on-site to spend the waiting time. Most of the regularly hour-ed employees are either currently, or have long since, wrapped up their dinners and cleared away, leaving the cafeteria with a 'post-party' sort of air reserved for janitors and night owls.     Which makes it a tiny bit more insane that one of the employees still remaining is a waitress just barely skirting the lines of workplace decency with her outfit. Her heels have bunny tail puffs on them, Foundation-diamond-patterned tights extend alll the way up to the short shorts that are overed by her monochrome button-up apron (top two undone, voluptuously), with a bunny ear headband nestled into her brown hair. She skates around the floor with the unmistakeable energy of 'just having started her shift', bussing tables left over from the dinner rush.     Carrying a tray loaded up with heavy dishes, she calls over her shoulder in a liltingly friendly voice, "Evenin', darlin's! I'll be right with ya if you hold tight a skosh."     The other girl here sits at the same table as the Elites-- most of the others being dirty or stacked up for the night, partly, but also motivated by her American-style amiable air. She is a girl entirely wearing men's clothing, with a Foundation-styled lanyard hanging out of her shirt pocket and a cowboy hat on her head. She also has a fake(?) moustache, that she fidgets with to adjust regularly. Despite the moustache, slacks, hat, and loafers, her voice is perfectly average and feminine when the waitress comes by to clean the neighbouring table, and she immediately springs up from her seat to come over and help scoop up dishes herself. "Hang on, sorry, let me give you a hand." "It's all good, darlin'! Sit down an' eat, relax yourself." "No ma'am, I wasn't raised to relax while another gal's working hard."
Regulus	The Vigiles Guard has been given a mission. The mission is to observe Madam Z and her team of Elites, keep an eye on them, and determine what they are up to if she can. The Guard doesn't really want to be doing this job because she doesn't want to get involved in politics, which sounds like a good way to get in trouble, or to get involved with Elites, which also seems like a good way to get in trouble from everything she's heard, and she definitely doesn't want to get involved in the Rebellion, which might get her thrown out to face the Storm all on her own. But she can't exactly say no to her orders and so she has received word from the other eyes and ears of Vigiles that she should be expecting them at the St. Pavlov Foundation food court. Which is just as well, because today is Saturday and that means the dark chocolate she likes will be freshly stocked and also she gets to sit down instead of having to stand in front of a door all day. She's got to count her blessings! So after collecting a few chocolate bars to last her for the week, she sits herself down at a nearby table. "Hey Bunny. Busy night?" She asks. The Guard is wearing a pageboy cap on her head upon which pair of goggles on her head. She has light brown hair, her bangs nearly covering her eyes. In her hands is a small ringed notepad which she sets down on the table, tapping on it with a pencil nearly ground down to the nub. She's wearing stirrup leggings that wrap around her dusty brown boots and a double breasted button down dress coat. She wasn't raised to relax while another gal was working hard either, but her mind is so preoccupied that by the time that she thinks to stand and offer a hand, the woman with the false mustache is already moving. Awkwardly, she sits herself back down and instead thinks about how she's going to approach these people and get all their secrets. Maybe she could just ask them directly, she thinks, and pretend that's what she thought they wanted? Spending the day following them around invisible feels uniquely dangerous so she better not do that. The Guard has had plenty of time to think about how she feels about the mess down at the Media Center but she's mostly worried she's going to be sent to do something about it which is scary, because there's Manus sympathizers there. She's heard horror stories from the initial force deployed to shut them down. She's been thinking about what she might have to do if she were sent there, too, but most of her plans involve Druvis inevitably having a tree eat her. So she's really hoping that this whole mess resolves itself before she gets given a job to do. Maybe, she thinks, if she keeps a good enough eye on these people she WON'T get sent down to the media center? ... Oh, but what if she does a good job and ends up getting sent down there because of her own work? That feels even worse. She idly scribbles on her notepad while she contemplates what to do while pretending to just be here for dinner which is not entirely pretending because she is here to get some food too and has hidden a number of those chocolate bars she snagged into her coat. She hasn't been getting much sleep, whatever work she's doing is definitely keeping her to the 'night owl' schedule. Or maybe she's just so anxious that she's not managing to sleep anyway.
Lilian Rook	Years ago, Lilian would sit around at these things and politely insist that she'd eaten already in order to avoid the slightest disruption to a carefully and humourlessly calibrated diet. That thought follows her all the way from the table and back, once she has already agreed to meet the others in the food court today for no other than the fact it's been four plus five hours since she last ate, and she'll take any decent excuse to go there.     She sticks to her bullshit, too. The upsettingly chrome and black gloss-based Laplace uniform stays in the LSCC campus and her semi-coincidentally monochrome ensemble of vague era and ample place to display a badge stays on this one. If anything, the lack of ambiguity, subtle yet glaring, makes it gradually feel more routine to come and go from this building, despite having originally expected to be given shit for it. The process of perusing every menu still available is brief; Matilda had so many complaints about the SPDM's food that Lilian just plays it safe and decides on curry chicken and vegetable dumplings to see if the main campus is a cut above or if they can fuck up even that. It's practically a dare to the fact she's wearing white.     Quiet is fine. Actually, people talking at all is, noiser than most of the eating Lilian has averaged over her life, which is brought down by often being unnaturally dead silent. What matters more is the deadly challenge placed right in front of her; in public, at a busy place that is currently quiet, dangled in plain sight, as if expressly placed to test her acuity and moral--     'No ma'am, I wasn't raised to relax while another gal's working hard.'     Oh phew. Mystery solved.     Lilian's idea of an icebreaker is to say "Really now? I was raised to never do work for free which somone else is getting paid for." which is really just an on-ramp to ask, rhetorically, "You're not actually custodial staff, are you?" and then non-rhetorically, "Which department?" Lilian even gets to put on a saucy slouch and rest her cheek in her hand to pretend she's trying to figure it out on her own.     'Hey Bunny. Busy night?'     Lilian side-eyes the newcomer, because she can't decide whether they're being a catcalling pissant or whether the waitress actually goes by Bunny. "And to think, over at Laplace they insist you don't work hard enough." she says. Of course, she joins in these days, because she despises the glacial pace of bureaucracy around here.
Flamel Parsons	"Look. I'm just saying, take it from me, the guy who, I really can't emphasize this enough, the guy who got a bullet *straight* through his skull, with Timekeeper Vertin's finger on the trigger." Flamel is leaned rather intensely over a cafeteria table, to Lilian. "I'm the guy who should have, maybe, *maybe* the most bias in the world to say, you should do however many weeks and months of maybe slightly weird animally-magnetic psychonautry to her. She's maybe a loose cannon. She--"     He turns to Bunny as she passes by. "Yeah, no rush, still settling on the last bit of my order." He gestures with his menu. Right back to Lilian. "She and her then-girlfriend *blew my brains out* with a *45*. And I guess I'm also unconsciously 'homo phobic' sometimes, so I might be the highest concentration of anti-Timekeeper bias in the entire Foundation campus." He puts a slightly clenched hand down on the menu.     "I'm trying to use context instead of impolite expletives to *really* maximimze my emphasis here." That hand digs its fingernails into his palm. "Someone has to do something. Because *someone* already *is*, a hundred thousand someone's with half of my, I don't know, half of my understandable institutional-power flaws, and twice my day-to-day inertia. A hundred thousand of those someones are engaging in neglect I couldn't abide. If a counselor at Whispering Rock did the kind of things I saw at the Chicago branch do to that family, all those children, I'd break their nose-- I'd, hhh. I'd push for the hardest and fastest internal affairs process the Psychonauts had ever seen."     "So all that to say," He rubs his face a bit. "I'm *really* needing you to push this. Maybe even get Sonetto to push this, hard. Understandably they don't want to consciously turn over the psychic payload of a bunch of outbursts from a guy who was working with the Manus last month. But more institutional authority, or at least more institutional *autonomy* from her is better than any alternative, and *yesterday* rather than next week. She's going to try at least. Someone has to do something."     Whenever Bunny gets to him, it's just, "Heya! Burger for me, please, everything and cheese." Like a switch got flipped. And he wasn't being so subtle that a Vigiles observer won't be able to listen in -- in fact, it was actually a little bit uncanny, if she's been surveilling him she'll be the first person in the larger multiverse to learn about his years-long habit of holding one-sided conversations with anyone hypothetically surveilling him, and politely letting them know when he expects to have high and low essential activity levels, so they can take necessary breaks and such. These have been honest reports.
Timekeeper	"Hey Bunny. Busy night?"     "Nothin' I can't handle, Miss Merel." She doesn't even blink at 'Bunny', so that's probably reassuring to Lilian's worries. She glides by like she's wearing rollerskates instead of black pumps, glances down into Merel's business, then nods decisively. "Looks like you already got your sweet tooth fixed, but how's a few more for the road? We've got some sweetbreads leftover from the luncheon in the back still?" > decides on curry chicken and vegetable dumplings     This late, the food court kitchen's trimmed down to the bare minimal operations. Earlier in the day, from Lilian's tour before with Madam Z and just from glancing around the structure of the austere cafeteria, it looks like they have multiple buffet-style or cook-to-order windows open-- surely some self-righteous 'pan-global cuisine' type thing-- but now it's just the bunnygirl taking your orders back to the kitchen.     "Chicken curry it is, love. You're in Bunny Bunny's hands tonight, so I'll make sure to get you right-- o~oh, that rhymed!" That response probably answers two questions for Lilian, really. "I was raised to never do work for free which somone else is getting paid for."     The cowboy-hatted girl is much less deft in bussing the table than Bunny Bunny is, but she's doggedly doing her best to stack up as many plates and cups as possible. Hands occupied, she awkwardly uses her elbow to tip the brim of her hat when Lilian acknowledges her. "Yes ma'am, that's right proper to not undercut a workin' man. I'm just thinkin' that we're all in the same boat here, and we can all pitch in when we've got a hand." "Which department?"     The woman, now in an introduction, instead of so rudely walking away to put down her stack of dishes, makes her armload that much more precarious to free up a hand to offer Lilian. "Bette, clerical program assistant for the Justice Department. How 'bout yourself?"     Bunny Bunny swings back by and easily lifts the plates right out of Bette's arms with one hand, using the other to tweak her moustache teasingly. "Thanks for the help, darlin'; now go sit." "Ah--" "the guy who, I really can't emphasize this enough, the guy who got a bullet *straight* through his skull, with Timekeeper Vertin's finger on the trigger." "Oh, did I hear Miss Vertin's name?" "Hold on, what?"     Bunny Bunny drops a platter with two hot plates, chicken curry and a cheeseburger respectively, then leans her palm on the table beside them, ears drooping down when her head tilts. "Now that I'm gettin' a look, you folks're multiversals, aren'tcha? You been hearing much about Miss Timekeeper lately?"
Tamamo	Tamamo has been pushing her own access to the Foundation in a way not completely and entirely differently from Flamel, in that she's been using her time to subtly engage in surveillance that's neither socially appropriate nor expressly forbidden. She hasn't told Lilian what she's doing, apart from that she 'needs to see everything,' and certainly not that she could be leaving small items in out of the way places. She has told TTT that she's doing, insofar as she's been carrying TTT in her phone and letting her see it happen.     There, she put down an old coin with a square hole in the middle. Here, she left half of a broken knitting needle on a leather cord. Over there, fallen behind the water cooler, a scrap of hemp cloth, sewn into a ball the size of her thumb, its dye a faded, murky green. There's no pattern, nor is there any apparent significance. There's plenty to tie the items to her, but only by someone with a talent just like hers.     'I'll be right with ya if you hold tight a skosh.'     "Please take your time."     '...while another gal's working hard.'     Tamamo, having been absolutely certain otherwise, does a double take.     'Hey Bunny.'     She squints.
Regulus	The Guard quiets down a little at the side-eye. At this point she thinks she has two ways to go about this. One, is to just be up front and say that Vigiles has assigned her to look after Madam Z's contingent and hope they take it as the bureau just wanting them to have protection. Two, is to try to get the conversation on the rebellion or whatever political plans they might be onto, all casual like. The third option, which she wasn't considering, was for Flamel to just start spewing information to her and the rest of the universe. This is despite experiencing Flamel monologues during previous surveillance attempts. The first time, she stuck with him assuming that he was trying to throw her off the trail and she was really annoyed with him. But every time since she saw it as a nice excuse to slack off for a while so she's learned to take that, and now this, at face value. She visibly looks at Flamel('s skull) to see if there are any entrance wounds into his skull or any exit wounds leading to outside his skull with some concern in her eyes. While The Vigiles Guard is aware that the Foundation is 'kind of fucked up'--Her time at the SPDM was NOT a joyful experience she appreciated--she's definitely not going to say anything that critiques the Foundation while working for the Foundation. She might get written up or, worse, reassigned to something even worse than the Vigiles. Like Zeno. Maybe if she does a good job today she can earn a nice desk job dealing with Vigiles paperwork rather than doing field work. The Guard is used to Flamel being pretty forthright about this sort of thing so she just ends up asking, more casual than she even meant to be, "What uh... What did the Chicago branch do?" The Vigiles Guard isn't so sure that Flamel is the most anti-Timekeeper person on campus because boy she's heard stories. But also mostly because Flamel seems mildly annoyed at being shot in the head. She quirks her head a little bit to try and figure out if he's some sort of Awakened in a mostly person-like body. She had forgotten he was working for Manus because he was being so helpful and letting her have snack breaks in the middle of her surveillance. Okay, she thinks, she doesn't have to just say she's with Vigiles she can just report what Flamel is just saying out loud to everyone and god. It's a perfect C+ job that doesn't get her in trouble with the scary Elites or with her bosses. She scribbles a little more in her notepad, swishing the pencil around in a circular motion. She's kind of surprised that Flamel, a Manus Vindictae Supporter, is announcing that he's homophobic too but she's not really inclined to ask about that. "Um, tuna salad. for me." She adds for her order. The Guard is motivated to not be killed or be too slow so she has pushed herself to eat reasonably healthy since her job involves possibly getting shot at. She's known people who aren't around anymore. She doesn't want to end up on a pillar one day herself for slacking off in THAT department. ''Nothin' I can handle, Miss Merel.'' Well hopefully they don't look into who 'Miss Merel' is. "Oh, yeah, I probably won't be able to drop by again for a while so I got set for the week.")] She is not planning on eating all this chocolate in one day. "And uh--well..." She's not so devoted to her nutritional regimen that she can say no to this offer. "--If it wouldn't be any problem, thanks Bunny. I appreciate it a bunch." Of course, Bunny knows she's in Vigiles and might just end up asking her how her Vigiles work is going or something like that but uh... She'll go back to her original plan if that happens. "I haven't heard much about Vertin since my SPDM days. But it's really blown up lately, huh?" She sinks a little in her chair upon being squinted at a second time.
Tamamo	'Nothin' I can't handle, Miss Merel.'     Well, that's fine, then, probably.     "Ms. Bunny, do you have--" About to ask for something distinctly un-American (to her knowledge of America), Tamamo hesitates, and broadens, "--any small soups? I would prefer something light and warm, at this hour."     'Now that I'm gettin' a look, you folks're multiversals, aren'tcha?'     "Oh, yes."     'You been hearing much about Miss Timekeeper lately?'     "Nno," she says, "not especially. There has been hardly a word worth hearing since the first day she was placed into custody."     'But more institutional authority, or at least more institutional *autonomy* from her is better than any alternative, and *yesterday* rather than next week.'     "That will not, you know, solve the problem. That is only a... 'workaround.' A 'release valve,' at the most optimistic. Still, yes, of course." She assumes he already knows about Madame Z's proposal, and that she supports it.
Lilian Rook	'I really can't emphasize this enough, the guy who got a bullet *straight* through his skull, with Timekeeper Vertin's finger on the trigger.' "Does it being through the head make it any worse somehow? Do you get to have more or less bias if they put a bullet through your chest? What about your neck?"     Unfortunately, now that she's here, this is what Lilian is stuck doing. She had vaguely hoped she might meet someone she recognizes, generally expected to be alone, was pleasantly surprised when Tamamo came down too, and then somehow ended up like this.     'She and her then-girlfriend *blew my brains out* with a *45*'     "I thought the Concord had a standing policy of not making that sort of statement?" Lilian's eyebrows go up in actual surprise, though over the stupidest, pettiest thing. "Deciding two women are 'girlfriends' because they interacted fondly. I hear the Director's right hand man had to tell people to stop because it was causing problems in ops." This is, of course, referring to the woman beside her, whom she eventually married.     'If a counselor at Whispering Rock did the kind of things I saw at the Chicago branch do to that family, all those children, I'd'     "Oh I'd break most of the bones in his body, drop him off in the woods, and let God decide on the rest." Lilian says. Subtly, she says so in her classical way of making light of something both horrible and recent by presenting it as mere gallows humour, so to Flamel and Tamamo, it mostly sounds like she's already decided what to do, and finds this conversation quaint. "You absolute saint of a man, you."     'I'm *really* needing you to push this. Maybe even get Sonetto to push this, hard. Understandably they don't want to consciously turn over the psychic payload of a bunch of outbursts from a guy who was working with the Manus last month.'     "Understandably. But it could be worse, you know. It could be a woman who was working with the Manus last month."     Unfortunately, for anyone who is not terribly familiar with her, this results in a weird guy dressed like a goverment ghoul waxing rhapsodic about how the Foundation needs immediate, radical action, to a visibly rich lesbian arcanist couple including an infamous historical villain-alike and a woman wearing a klein blue accessory on purpose. So.     "While I appreciate clearly being on the same side of something, for once, you're preaching to the choir, Parsons. I'm prepared to 'push this', as you put it, in aways your brain isn't prepared to even conceive of."     'You're in Bunny Bunny's hands tonight, so I'll make sure to get you right-- o~oh, that rhymed!'     Lilian, lips parted to begin something suggesting that she can get rid of the guard-- Merel, apparently-- if she's being annoying, closes them again with scarcely a pause between. For reasons unknown, she indulges instead in "It seems you're a poet, and you didn't even know it."     'Yes ma'am, that's right proper to not undercut a workin' man.'     Lilian, incorrectly, assumes she must be on the same page with this stranger, and immediately forgives her for the perceived slight of insinuating someone's ineptitude by taking over their work. "I suppose, in many senses, we are. But I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to still think in terms of payrolls and official duties; at least for now. It's sort of aspirational in a way, don't you think? Like making a little wish that everything will be back to normal in a year or two, because that's when your benefits kick in."
Flamel Parsons	"It's the *worst* when it's straight through the head! Well, at least it was only my executive mental figure and through the head of him, but, still. And anyway, fine, fine, I'm just currently trying to leverage increased emotional authenticity to halo-effect imply better interpretations for my other statements, I won't talk about their relationship." Flamel yaps with Lilian for a bit, before the rest get involved. "I suppose you already plan to push it, sure... I just, I don't know. I need the urgency. Maybe I need to get involved too? I don't really know what to do here."     "I *wish* I was hearing more about her. I'm the one who should be running that psychological review." Flamel's rubbing the bridge of his nose when he yammers with Bunny Bunny. "I'm impersonal! I'm a facet of the larger system. That woman has too much invested in her, I don't think she can do this impartially. You're supposed to recuse yourself." He exposits, as if for a passing protagonist.     No holes in his head that are clearly visible, at least... Not from a casual examination anyway. But when the Guard asks what the Chicago branch actually did, Flamel raises a finger and starts, before holding, "Ahh-- on-record or off-record? On-record," He wrings that hand a little. "*Unfortunate neglect* that wasn't being accounted for, let's say." He grabs up a cheeseburger with a brooding tension. "But *off* record? Someone slipped through the cracks, cracks big enough that they're threatening the structure of the Foundation. Sometimes people say to me something like, 'the purpose of a system is what it does'. Well, they're wrong, a system's substance is how much it's willing to work. The Foundation can't let itself get tied up in era-specific cultural inaction. It needs to push past that and use the one advantage it has, *kindness* informed by the *aspirations of the future*." He takes a bite and mumbles around it. "Otherwise the organization's at risk..."     "Vertin's, mmph, Vertin's got the boots-on-the-ground knowledge and the investigator's skills to unilaterally decide some kindness." He says around a few more bites. "And I think people who'd, mlph, who'd rather do nothing and go with the current pulling everyone backwards don't like that."     Tamamo says that won't solve the problem. And Flamel agrees maybe too over-eagerly. "I mean, yeah." He says, putting the burger down for a second and gesturing at her with a fry. "She's also got an *incredibly* limited perspective. Boots on the ground means you can see the blight on the trees but you don't know the shape of the forest, you know? I'd rather the Foundation start engaging in that kind of future-informed kindness *as a whole*. But this is a step, I don't know, at least a step out of the current of the flooding river that's pulling St. Pavlov in the wrong direction."
Lilian Rook	'Bette, clerical program assistant for the Justice Department. How 'bout yourself?'     Oh! Yay! An answer! Lilian blinks first, smiles second, and says after the goofy little chivalrous hat tip (clearly delighted) "Lilian. I'm a researcher at Laplace, but for the time being, I'm taking contracted work of the investigative wing." She takes her hand partway through, strangely enamoured by the quirkiness of shaking hands at a food court table.     'Oh, did I hear Miss Vertin's name?'     Funny enough, that takes Lilian by surprise as well. No matter how much of a nuclear bomb Vertin's name has become at the upper echelons of the Foundation's command structure, she hadn't quite expected the fallout to have reached all the way to the ground, down here.     'You been hearing much about Miss Timekeeper lately?'     "Practically nothing but." Lilian sighs. "Plenty I didn't ask for, and seldom any of it relevant, so I may as well just say 'no'." Impulsively deciding to try her hand at being reassuring, she glances once at Tamamo, then adds "I check on her from time to time, while I'm at the LSCC, but there's nothing terribly exciting to speak of. The delay is frankly embarrassing."     'What uh... What did the Chicago branch do?'     Lilian immediately raises her hand. She stares at Flamel instead of the stranger, and says "I'm sorry, but that's the subject of an ongoing investigation." in a half-power stern tone; which is still a bit much. She looks back at Merel for asking, in a way that turns her neck as little as possible.     'I haven't heard much about Vertin since my SPDM days.'     "Oh. You're a classmate?" Instant tone change.     '--any small soups? I would prefer something light and warm, at this hour.'     Speaking of tone changes: "Oh surely they have some cheap miso stashed away in a cupboard somewhere. What a farce it'd be if they didn't."
Lilian Rook	'But this is a step, I don't know, at least a step out of the current of the flooding river that's pulling St. Pavlov in the wrong direction.'     Lilian really can't decide which way she wants to interpret Flamel's leaky vagueposting and its relation to how likely he is to just arbitrarily spill any facts he's made aware of on this case if he gets fussy enough. She splits the difference with an exasperated sound at it all, lacing her fingers together severely, and saying, "This is why you don't get 'the urgency'. You get so worked up and gossipy and nobody can afford to be as urgent as you'd like when you're around."
Flamel Parsons	Flamel shakes his head briefly at Lilian, digging into his hamburger more. "Mmph, no no, can't cut that off with *total* confidentiality. Times like this, Foundation's probably keeping tabs, you actually have to be gossipy. You gotta politely give five percent to passing parties with too much interest, otherwise their jobs are too hard." He gestures with his half-burger at the Guard. "Basically, imagine if *she* was, I dunno, assigned to follow us or something. If we cut her off, give her nothing to report, it's a *huge* annoyance for everyone. Trust me, making good first impressions is key. You can still keep the details and stuff, y'know? But this is the business."     He seems to still, sincerely, be entirely dismissing the idea that the passing Guard *specifically* is, in any way, involved in keeping tabs on him. "These days, you gotta account for having your phone bugged and your power outlet's reporting your toaster habits, the whole nine yards. Did you know? Recently, the Psychonauts had a mole, so command asked everyone to get a little bit more gossipy around strangers. Sure enough, someone starts monitoring and he solves it in a week."
Tamamo	'But this is a step, I don't know, at least a step out of the current of the flooding river that's pulling St. Pavlov in the wrong direction.'     "It shall not be a step backwards, at the least. As to what steps might be taken afterward -- it is always nice to think of positive 'momentum,' but such is a danger until the ground can be seen." That's possibly too vague to be useful to say, but she can't be more specific until after her own investigations progress.     'Bette, clerical program assistant for the Justice Department.'     "Oh, would you say your coworkers have more of an 'interpretation,' 'investigation,' or 'correction' duty?"     'I check on her from time to time, while I'm at the LSCC...'     "It is a little relieving to think there is someone else seeing to her." 'Other than Mesmer,' obviously. Someone who would say something if Vertin's hair was suddenly cut, slightly less obviously.     'What a farce it'd be if they didn't.'     Tamamo smiles politely.     'You get so worked up and gossipy and...'     "She is right, you know." Obviously.     Flamel continues to talk, and Tamamo settles on... "Ms. Merel, was it?"
Regulus	''I'm sorry, but that's the subject of an ongoing investigation.'' "Ah, I get it." She says, waving her hand to assure Lilian she won't press the matter further. Insisting people tell you things they don't want to tell you is a terrible way to avoid getting into trouble while finding things out. They'll stop saying things or, worse, give you a talking to. Unfortunately, Flamel just goes off and says things on record AND off record. The Guard feels like she should tell Flamel that she isn't a reporter and saying 'off the record' and 'on the record' doesn't mean anything to her. The good news is that 'cracks in the Foundation' are things she hears about all the time from people complaining about the Foundation. She's pretty accustomed to it so at least she doesn't have to consider how to sneak away while worrying about being followed and given a talking to (or something worse) about it. She considers giving Flamel a warning that he probably shouldn't just tell her this stuff but it IS pretty vague if broad and also telling someone to not give her intelligence when she's supposed to be getting intelligence from them feels like a D grade Vigiles effort instead of the C+ she is aiming for so she just sort of hopes that she doesn't accidentally move out of the C range through her efforts on accident. But she can't really hide the sympathy in her eyes as to Vertin's condition. This IS a fellow student at the SPDM after all and she has some empathy for the other 'big troublemaker of the SPDM' even if the circumstances surrounding her are a bit spooky. What IS going on? But pushing too hard, even for her own satisfaction, feels dangerous. Geeze, she thinks, where were these people when she was locked in the tower. Oh right, another dimension. But she can't just say NOTHING. "Well," She says. "People say stuff like that about the Foundation all the time." At least where she works. Cops complain a lot, she supposes. ''Oh. You're a classmate?'' "A year younger. After the second Storm." The Guard says. "I heard Matilda's been working with the Paladins. Has she been doing alright? We uh--used to hang out in the Library." ''You gotta politely give five percent.'' The Guard decides not to tell her bosses Flamel said this and to also omit that he gestured at her while saying 'imagine if Merel was spying on us'.
Timekeeper	At the collective agreement that there's been no particular change known in Vertin's condition, Bunny Bunny pouts a bit, and surprisingly for not having asked the question, Bette's shoulders slump too. After having her dishes cleared away by Bunny, Bette uneasily sits back down and starts working away at the thick chowder Bunny Bunny brought for her. Despite her bummed out tone, she mows through the bowl of soup in record time.     "That's a darn shame, it is. That girl's not done no one wrong." "Oh? You know Miss Vertin too?" "Chatted here and there with her, yup. She seemed curious bout Hollywood, so I told her what I knew. She showed me 'round that Suitcase of hers too." "Reaa~ally? She offered me a job there before! I'da taken her up on it, but... well... hahhh...." "Hahhhh...."     The two of them both sigh in unison, Bunny Bunny having sank into her folded arms leaning on the table. Tamamo's order and Lilian's elaboration-- necessary, it looks like-- makes her pop right back up to her feet again, fingers curled against her cheek. "Miso? ... Er, any hint where that's from, love? I'll raid the cabinets for you, just point me in the directions and I'm off to the races!" "It's sort of aspirational in a way, don't you think?"     "Never thought about it like that before."     Bunny Bunny speeds off and vanishes through the swinging kitchen doors once she's told so much as the word 'Japanese', and in her absence, Bette keeps up the chatter over their late night meals. "All this office work though, doesn't it seem a bit lonely to do it all on your own? I'd like to think we'd all keep cooperating like this even after everything, if there's an after. But I've never been a gal suited to this high schooling sorta thing-- and you look real educated, am I right?" "Someone slipped through the cracks, cracks big enough that they're threatening the structure of the Foundation."     Bette makes a low whistle, swirling her spoon around in her mostly empty soup bowl. "That's what started all this? Those protesters, and stuff? I saw that broadcast they made... up on the big screen, making their message known to everyone..." She looks a little dreamy for a moment. ansi(130,"Ah, it makes you think that maybe everything will change, right?")]     She raises up her hands placatingly. "Er, not to pry or nothin'. This stuff's all way over my head." Bunny Bunny comes back, with a simple miso made from packaged powder, and because that seemed like far too little food for her, she's also brought a small sandwich sliced diagonally four ways, a can of tea, and a few plates with slices of chocolate ganache cake on them for Merel, Bette, and the Elites. "That woman has too much invested in her, I don't think she can do this impartially. You're supposed to recuse yourself."     Once she's freed of her duties temporarily, with no other tables to wait on, Bunny Bunny yanks a chair from another table, spinning it around backwards and propping one knee up on it. Leaning against the back of the seat towards the table, both the ears and her-- the playboy bunny thing is surely intentional-- boobs bounce with the motion. "'That woman'? What's going on there?"
Lilian Rook	'Mmph, no no, can't cut that off with *total* confidentiality. Times like this, Foundation's probably keeping tabs, you actually have to be gossipy.'     Lilian scowls very faintly. It's more in her voice than in her expression. "Of course they are. Someone certainly was since the day I got back." she says, meaning, implicatively, 'from the Walden', as if it were a business trip. "I wouldn't politely give five percent of the time of day to a nosy stranger attempting to pry into my business." she says. Adoring fans may thusly be an exception. "Spare me the empathetic neighbour talk. If these people had to work my job, they wouldn't live to collect their first paycheque; and they aren't making it any easier."     'Basically, imagine if *she* was, I dunno, assigned to follow us or something. If we cut her off, give her nothing to report, it's a *huge* annoyance for everyone.'     Lilian glances at Merel again, raises an eyebrow, rolls her eyes, and scoffs back to Flamel. "My first impressions are made, thank you. My agency preaches a much less forgiving view of what to do with unsolicited 'handlers', and I'm inclined to agree. You should be praising me for being so patient and openminded after how badly the Foundation bungled their first impressions with me instead."     'These days, you gotta account for having your phone bugged and your power outlet's reporting your toaster habits, the whole nine yards.'     This annoys Lilian considerably more. "I'm aware. I've had my phone hacked once before, and someone rummage through my private files at my university, not to mention the botched home invasion I know you're already aware of. Do you think I'm just cruel for fun?" Well . . .     'It is a little relieving to think there is someone else seeing to her.'     "Oh! Actually, Sonetto mentioned seeing her too." Lilian says, leaning a little closer to Tamamo. "I'm glad. But I did wish I knew earlier. I wouldn't have had to worry so much about keeping the Mesmers honest. Ah-- I'm reminded, isn't TTT allowed in now too?"     'People say stuff like that about the Foundation all the time.'     "Damning as anything." Lilian scoffs.     'I heard Matilda's been working with the Paladins. Has she been doing alright? We uh--used to hang out in the Library.'     Lilian's attitude towards anything other than 'was in the exact same class' is a nonverbal 'that's nice' and an inattentive nod. Hearing Matilda's name ends up brightening her mood again, though; and it's not subtle. "Well enough that she's been offered a promotion path into a proper field investigator position. About time, too. She's a little goofy, certainly, but she's a supremely hard worker, and she takes that work very seriously."
Regulus	The Guard carefully wraps her little sandwich in a piece of cloth she precurse from her pocket to save it for later. She'd do that with the chocolate cake too but that'd get messy so instead she just gives in and works on it now. She's going to have to make these chocolate bars last a lot longer than she expected in order to catch back up on her nutrition regimen. "She offered you a job?" The Guard asks Bunny. The Guard likes Bunny Bunny because she always sneaks a little extra into the meal in a way that it feels like you've been given a little extra treat. Sure, the food is free, but a little extra surprise food is always tastier and more heartening than food you just picked out for yourself. So she feels compelled to warn her, "It sounds like real dangerous work." Because she doesn't want Bunny Bunny to end up Stormed or killed. As a cafeteria worker here, she pretty much has a near-ideal job in The Guard's book. They're not gonna send her into a dangerous situation. Office work does sound a little lonely to do on your own, the Guard supposes, but it is definitely safer. And the Guard can handle it. But she's a little less willing to encourage someone to sticking to office work because that feels like admitting her secret. Talk about Matilda is distracting the Guard from her job here, but she's honestly happy to hear about Matilda. It's like killing two birds with one conversation since she's getting to hear about what her friend's been up to. "Oh, yeah, she gave me the business once or twice for sure." She says, sounding strangely appreciative. "I--" It's a little hard for her to say she's glad Matilda is in a position that's more dangerous but she pushes on anyway. "I'm glad she's being recognized. She does work hard and she uh--" Don't say 'made the SPDM infinitely more bearable'. "Helped me out a lot in my early years." That sounds less pathetic. She looks to Tamamo. "Oh, uh, yes. Tamamo, right?" She is a little surprised to be talked to directly rather than indirectly and before she said anything to them. "Yeah, I'm Merel." She tears a page out of her notebook and offers it to Bunny Bunny. It's not unusual for Merel to do this. She's drawn a bunch of nesting owls with a word balloon that says 'Thanks, Bunny bunny, for giving a hoot about our meal!' It's so casual it might be tradition.
Flamel Parsons	It won't be a step backwards, huh? "Gotta keep moving forward, into the future." Flamel says to Tamamo. Like a treasure. Or like a prayer. "Once we're out of the current, I can focus on better changes. For now, we need dry land. Like you said, we need to see the ground first."     Bette talks protests. "I'm not really affiliated with the pirate radio." Flamel rambles awkwardly. "I've liked some of her work, and she helped out a great deal, but I've got a higher priority I need to focus on and it precludes any real work with them. And, are they saying all of that, for...?" He gets a distant look, cutting off the name before it comes out.     As for 'that woman', well, of course, "Mesmer Jr. She's got the kind of past and investment about Vertin that I... I just don't know. I can't blame them for not having me handle that case, given the history. But approaching it like this just seems wrong. Like it's working something out that wasn't supposed to be felt in the first place and won't ever really get worked out this way."     Lilian's negativity about hardworking surveillors gets some tut-tut-tut type posture from Flamel. "Those are hardworking people. It's important to be polite to the larger system, otherwise it starts getting feverish, you know." He gestures at the Foundation. "Think of St. Pavlov like a person, not just a place and a people. Or maybe a large and somewhat clumsy bird might be the better image. It needs to nose around. It needs to examine you in the only real way it knows how to. And if your posture is tense, and you seem too big, and when it gets into your space, you push it away, well, it'll act like any creature does."     "And given we're here to help heal something broken, I can't afford to start thinking about what is and isn't fair... It's about helping, as simply and straightforwardly as possible."
Lilian Rook	'That's a darn shame, it is. That girl's not done no one wrong.'     Like this, in such a sparsely populated area, it's easy to sense the change of mood. Lilian returns to scrutinizing Bette when she's only just gotten her own meal. She is far too experienced to take it as just an idle expression of general sympathy; and everything to do with Vertin commands all of her attention nowadays.     'Reaa~ally? She offered me a job there before! I'da taken her up on it, but... well... hahhh....'     'Hahhhh....'     But she's no so familiar with #-1 FUNCTION (ANS) NOT FOUND world that she can pick up on all the subtext. So, already manipulating her utensils with too much absentminded flair, Lilian gently prods "It's an absolutely gorgeous spot. Isn't it? I inherited the family house and I'm still a little bit jealous. If that whole protest were a bit less democratic, or a bit less justified, I'd think they were just trying to keeping it all for themselves."     'Miso? ... Er, any hint where that's from, love?'     "Japan. It'll be a paste or a powder. It may be under seasonings." Despite Bunny Bunny also being 'an employee' and 'a stranger', she is The Help right now, which means Lilian is automatically obliging and smiles about it too."Thank you very much."     'I'd like to think we'd all keep cooperating like this even after everything, if there's an after. But I've never been a gal suited to this high schooling sorta thing-- and you look real educated, am I right?'     Lilian is taken aback enough to pause and blink, but not so much that she has to stop to think of an answer. "Certainly, it's a situation that advantages people who were already comfortable with the state of things near the end of the century, and displays surprisingly little sensitivity to those used to working on traditional, communal, or 'simple and practical' terms." Lilian says, diplomatic, intrigued by being asked at all. "And yes, I've graduated something similar to the sort of snotty highbrow English university you must be thinking of." she says next, with a slight, cheeky, grin. "Don't get me wrong, though. I think it's a commendable attitude. I'm partial to Laplace's more 'social' environment myself.."     'Ah, it makes you think that maybe everything will change, right?'     "Mm?" Lilian looks at her in genuine surprise, short-lived as it is. "Of course it will." She turns back to her food, with four sequentially unnecessary little fork-spins. She barely gets through two more bites before Bunny Bunny comes hustling back, and her mouth is instead necessary to gush "Oh my--! What a darling you are! You really didn't have to-- Do your employers accept tips? Actually, I don't care if they do; please allow me." Naturally, anyone who brings her wife sandwiches and tea is simply welcome to the table by transitive property.     ''That woman'? What's going on there?'     Lilian, who at first thought Flamel was being passively shitty about Vertin having emotions, double takes at her own realization. She falls to an exasperated sigh, an uneasy gesture that rubs at her neck, and a strangely troubled "What isn't going on? Freud would kill himself on the spot."
Tamamo	'Er, any hint where that's from, love?'     Pleasantly, "It would be from Japan, and I suppose you would call it a salty-savory soup. If there is none available, then dashi stock... likely would not be, and kombu... well, I could hardly ask one to make new stock, at this hour." It's all fermented, so that's really impossible without Lilian's help, anyway.     Already expecting to have any hopes dashed, but now committed, "Tofu, perhaps...?" But Bunny's off so swiftly that Tamamo's not sure she heard the last bit, and allows herself to hope, after all.     When she's back, "Oh! You have my thanks." Tamamo's perfectly, visibly delighted with her instant miso and canned tea, and takes a sip of each before trying the sandwich, to let that be washed down with the former. "Mm, that is so much nicer."     --the playboy bunny thing is surely intentional--     Giving it some consideration and context, Tamamo decides that this is a matter of self-expression (as opposed to flirting or occupation), and can only be addressed as such. She doesn't, because they're not currently talking about fashion.     'Oh! Actually, Sonetto mentioned seeing her too.'     "Oh, that is good. It was almost as if they were treating her like a plague victim, though of course, it was hardly anything like that." Meaning, the appearance of it was bad and the truth was worse.     'She's a little goofy, certainly, but she's a supremely hard worker, and she takes that work very seriously.'     "She was so attentive to detail during the terraforming project testing, too. Such work certainly demands that sort of effort, more than most." Tamamo nods along, pleased to speak of a promising, excitable junior.
Lilian Rook	'It sounds like real dangerous work.'     Lilian, who is not yet a celebrity here, and who hasn't said much about herself just yet, presumes it unimportant to comment, "A little bit, but the SPDM doesn't graduate fuckups-- If you'll excuse my French." To the SPDM graduate, too! "As a commanding officer, I've no complaints with her style. Some danger is unavoidable, but a competent field lead knows how to minimize those risks and assign them only to the people who can handle it; and Vertin is better than merely competent." It's only as 'the Timekeeper' that Lilian might, perhaps, have a complaint or two.     'Oh, yeah, she gave me the business once or twice for sure.'     Lilian pauses, impatiently waits to finish chewing, and says, "Really now?"     'Helped me out a lot in my early years'     "She's a sweetheart, isn't she? For someone so dogmatically committed to doing things properly, she's astonishingly sensitive."     'Oh, uh, yes. Tamamo, right?'     Lilian puts her left hand on top of Tamamo's on purpose.     'Like it's working something out that wasn't supposed to be felt in the first place and won't ever really get worked out this way.'     "If it's any consolation, it's because they obviously assigned Annika to spy on her in the first place." Even Lilian isn't sure whether she used Mesmer's first name out of petty spite or a protective instinct just then.
Lilian Rook	'Those are hardworking people. It's important to be polite to the larger system, otherwise it starts getting feverish, you know.'     "Is that so? Well perhaps they still aren't working as hard as I do." Lilian says, billionaireishly (on purpose at least). "I'm not going to think of the Foundation as a person. If it was, we wouldn't be on speaking terms." Lilian huffs. "It's more of a forest. A stationary fixture with its own internal ecosystem that individual elements 'belong to', even when they leave it. It doesn't have a collective memory or an overall opinion; it's made up of a lot of little things that that'll ask you to adjust, which you can ask to adjust, or which are utterly indifferent to you either way. I'm not going to let the ticks bite me in hopes it'll convince the deer to let me pat it."     'I can't afford to start thinking about what is and isn't fair'     "Well I can." Lilian . . . doesn't quite 'snap', because neither her volume nor her speed change, but the words carry a brief and sudden heat all the same. "Even imbeciles can navigate how the world already is. Someone needs to be thinking about how it should be."
Timekeeper	"Oh, would you say your coworkers have more of an 'interpretation,' 'investigation,' or 'correction' duty?"     "Mine, ma'am?" Bette looks surprised to be asked the question, and she pinches her moustache with her hand over her mouth like it genuinely takes some thought. "Oooh... well, the lawfolk have all their... they do a lot of reading documents, for sure. Is 'interpretation' studying? And there's the trials too, of course..."     Bette points the rear end of her spoon at Tamamo, and sweeps it to gesture between her, Lilian, and Flamel. "Oooh, is this part of your work? Gosh, ma'am, I wish I had a better answer, but I mostly run papers. There's the attorneys, Her Honor Miss Baines the judge, the clerks, poor Mr. translator who's just been floating ever since the multiverse and all...." "It sounds like real dangerous work."     "Dangerous? Is it?" Bunny Bunny's eyebrows raise, but she's not dismissing Merel out of hand. "Well, it's no cozy secure gig down in th' belly of the beast like workin' nights here is, but she was just askin' for a cook."     "Ooooh... but that Suitcase sure is caught up in that rebellion over on th' east side, huh? Guess that's a bit dangerous, but it's a little exciting too, ain't it? I'm half a mind to pick up a sign myself and get swinging it around outside of Laplace sometimes." "Mesmer Jr. She's got the kind of past and investment about Vertin that I... I just don't know."     "Seeee, now, thaaaaat's why." Bunny Bunny's procured a whole soda float for herself too, and she waggles the straw at Flamel for emphasis. "Something 'bout all this business stinks to me. I'll tell you what, and I won't say this too loud, but...."     Bunny Bunny lowers her voice and leans in, nearly teetering her chair off balance. "I'm not even convinced that Miss Vertin *needed* that treatment. I'm thinking there's other things going on, some suspicious works going around. Don't call me a conspiracy wacko, though, haha." "Helped me out a lot in my early years."     "Aww, don't start talking like that, you'll make me feel ancient. You're still in your early years." Bette jokingly drags a hand down her face in despair, being like, maybe at the very most ten years older than Merel is. "You're one of those students here? I've never heard all that much about y'all, being so shiny and well-bred as you are. Well, 'sides Miss Timekeeper." "It's an absolutely gorgeous spot. Isn't it?"     Bette plants her cheek on the heel of her palm, looking off into the distance. "It's a beaut, that's for sure. Grand old manor, perfect for a stately period piece or a spooky ghost story, woods as far as the eye can see and no one to interrupt... the things you could get done there! Wow! Ah, but I guess one of those things is a rebellion...." "And yes, I've graduated something similar to the sort of snotty highbrow English university you must be thinking of."     Bette's wide smile splits her face, teeth showing excitedly. "Ha ha, thought so! You've got that air around you!"     She continues on, on what feels like a totally esoteric tangent but makes perfect sense to her, "Back in my time-- I'm from the thirties, by the way-- I never really thought I'd ever meet a real true-life fancypants Brit in my life. Thought you sorts only existed on the big screen, like Hitchcock and all. But here, y'all are crawling all over the place."
Timekeeper	She flushes, then waves her hand hastily. "Ah, not that that's bad, or nothing! It's good, I'd say! You've got a real movie star accent." "You really didn't have to-- Do your employers accept tips?"     "It's overnight, what won't they accept?~" Bunny Bunny hums happily, giving Merel a fond rub on the head and making a cooing noise at the drawing before sliding it into the gap in her shirt along with the bills. "Thanks a million, hun."
Lilian Rook	'Mm, that is so much nicer.'     Bunny Bunny has pleased her wife greatly. Lilian awards her one hundred reputation points. She is now welcome in her holy places and may share of her water. This is a considerably higher honour than the cash she is already fishing for, pausing only to ask, "A-ah, how do they pay you here? The exchange rates must be a nightmare."     Admittedly, the playboy bunny thing doesn't hurt. The ring on her finger can't stop her from glancing! Only from getting up to her old bullshit where she sees how far she can push into making Tamamo visibly possessive before she gets in trouble!     'It was almost as if they were treating her like a plague victim, though of course, it was hardly anything like that.'     "I'd feel like more of a moderate if they hadn't discharged me before the end of the shift." Lilian says. She doesn't even bother to scowl. The motivation couldn't be any more obvious in its political cynicism. "Sonetto is doing her best as well. I think it'd ease her mind if you were to check in on her too, you know?" she says, as if Sonetto is their joint adoptive child or something.
Regulus	The Guard is about to beg Flamel to stop spilling those '5 percent of secrets' because she's going for C+ here not like an A here. Information about relations between everyone and feelings about everyone is pretty big information to just DROP like this, and she probably would have if it was just flamel but since Lilian is also here she can't really just do that actually because then she'll find out how Lilian's agency deals with people like her and she really doesn't want to be telling her bosses about THAT thank you very much. Also please stop talking to Lilian about hardworking surveillors, the Guard thinks. What if she WASN'T a hardworking surveillor? He's going to give Lilian the wrong (correct) impression of her! And that's awful! ''Of course it will.'' Honestly that confidence is pretty big to share. If Lilian thinks it's so inevitable, the people who gave her this job might ALSO think it's inevitable. She likes Lilian now. Yes, please tell her bosses that there's no reason to try and stop whatever is changing from changing by sending her into a combat situation. ''The SPDM doesn't graduate fuckups--'' The Guard explicitely worked to not flunk out, but she was sort of hoping to not be considered good enough to be a cop. Or maybe she needed to do better on the tests to not be a cop? She's still not sure if she got the job for doing too well or not doing well enough. Why couldn't they just have told her what grade to get to get a desk job? Then she could've gotten that grade! She quirks her head as she compliments Vertin's leadership but then nods slowly. "Well... I guess she's gotta be doing pretty well if she's doing all that." But apparently Vertin did too good of a job and ended up being put under for a month and a half because of it. This is why it's important to do 'good enough', the Guard thinks, because otherwise you're going to ruffle the wrong feathers. ''Really now?'' "Yeah," The Guard is still fondly recounting. "Going from the school I was used to and ending up at the SPDM was a pretty big shift for me so it took me a while to get used to how things were done." ''She's a sweetheart, isn't she?'' "Yeah. If you're, um, if your leadership style is similar to how you describe The Timekeeper's, I appreciate you looking out for her properly." The Guard hesitates before adding. "My work keeps me pretty busy, but if you can-- Actually one second." She scribbles furiously on her notepad, drawing another owl with a speech bubble and little confetti flakes hovering in the air. The owl is saying 'Congratulations on your field investigator promotion! - Merel'. She offers the sketch to Lilian. "Could you pass this on to her, next time you see her?" ''Lilian puts her left hand on top of Tamamo's on purpose.'' The Guard, unlike Flamel, is not particularly homophobic. ''But she's just askin' for a cook.'' The Guard's more relieved about everything after hearing Lilian's reassurances, but not completely. "Well ... I guess so. Just be careful." She isn't exactly going to go 'As Vigiles I should warn you to not do crimes.'. ''You're still in your early years.'' The Guard smiles. "Eheh...well, I've been here longer. But I guess, uh, I mean like as a kid." Please, Bette, don't say she's still a kid. "Uh--w, well bred?" Her mood brightens immediately at Bunny's appreication of the art and she smiles brightly, cracking through her anxiety. "Thank ''you''." She really hopes they don't send her there.
Tamamo	'Ah-- I'm reminded, isn't TTT allowed in now too?'     "She has a bit more freedom now than before, at the least."     'Oh, uh, yes. Tamamo, right?'     "A pleasure to meet you, Ms. Merel. I am known as Tamamo-no-mae, though also, now, by other names, and am a Chevalier of the Paladins. By which department might you be employed?" She's the only one here who hasn't mentioned it -- apart from Bunny, but Tamamo assumes she actually works in the cafe and isn't just commandeering it nightly for fun.     'Or maybe a large and somewhat clumsy bird might be the better image. It needs to nose around.'     "What an oddly cute imagery you have." Tamamo might be impressed. Mildly surprised, at least.     Lilian puts her left hand on top of Tamamo's on purpose.     Tamamo leans over, smiling conspiratorially. "Shall I use that name, after all? Ah, but the reveal was spoiled prematurely." It's a little harder to keep smiling while thinking about that, but she does.
Tamamo	'Is 'interpretation' studying? And there's the trials too, of course...'     Tamamo nods. "'Interpretation,' then. That is the matter of deciding how the law should be applied. It is unusual for organizations that do not style themselves as governments to have such a branch, you know. Even a ship sailing through time must deal with the governing bodies of the islands it passes."     Deciding she's getting off-track, Tamamo moves on to say, "As for my own work, the Paladins allow a great deal of leeway, so long as certain standards are upheld. The word, you may know, refers to a certain group of romantic knights, who did behave as knights-errant, and I have sometimes thought the comparison quite apt in its intent. There are several layers of ties, varying inversely by strength and specificity." Tamamo doesn't point at anyone when she gestures, but she does gesture.     'You've got that air around you!'     "I wonder how I might have fared, given the chance to have such schooling," she says, wistful.     'I think it'd ease her mind if you were to check in on her too, you know?'     "Well, now that you have said so, it seems obvious that I should have already thought to do so, myself."
Lilian Rook	'Oooh, is this part of your work? Gosh, ma'am, I wish I had a better answer, but I mostly run papers. There's the attorneys, Her Honor Miss Baines the judge, the clerks, poor Mr. translator who's just been floating ever since the multiverse and all....'     Lilian really wants to ask Bette what she thinks Tamamo's job is, but what comes to her first is a wince and the words "Ádh mór ort, aistritheoir-san." followed by a depleted giggle.     'Ooooh... but that Suitcase sure is caught up in that rebellion over on th' east side, huh? Guess that's a bit dangerous, but it's a little exciting too, ain't it? I'm half a mind to pick up a sign myself and get swinging it around outside of Laplace sometimes.'     "Outside Laplace?" strikes Lilian first. She glances up from a plate that has mysteriously cleared itself faster than she's seemed to eat. Before she can press for more, she realizes that Bunny Bunny working in the Suitcase would mean Bunny Bunny serving her and her wife again, and so-- "The Foundation guarantees the democratic right to express a dissenting view from established policy, doesn't it? Last I checked, this wasn't the headquarters of Manus Vindictae." The audacity of this bitch. "Even Madam Z thinks so."     'I'm not even convinced that Miss Vertin *needed* that treatment. I'm thinking there's other things going on, some suspicious works going around. Don't call me a conspiracy wacko, though, haha.'     Oh Bunny Bunny. You're so silly. You're so smart. You're so shockingly innocent. Lilian is holding her face on both sides and not even explaining why. "Well . . . They're not just sitting around reading the paper in that ward room, but I couldn't help notice how strangely quick they were to begin. Even if it were a vital procecure, they'd normally at least wait a day for anything non-life-threatening, right?"     'You're one of those students here? I've never heard all that much about y'all, being so shiny and well-bred as you are.'     Lilian coughs unexpectedly at 'well-bred'. No not for that reason. "That's what they say? I thought it was more common knowledge that the SPDM largely instructs orphans."     'It's a beaut, that's for sure. Grand old manor, perfect for a stately period piece or a spooky ghost story'     Lilian had alost forgotten about this particular feeling. Or, rather, she had forgotten that it mattered outside of that one night in Chicago of 1929. The idea that it could follow her here, to the Foundation of all places, had never even occured to her. She wiggles in her chair a little closer and puts her elbows up on the table before thinking about it.     "And that sun room! All you'd have to do is put up a little splash of weather effects and it totally changes the mood of it, right? That view is so incredible it manages to implythe entirety of what's outside all on its own; and it's the central location of the whole setup, so just orienting by it provides a sense of place. Ah, but it's a little 'new' to be haunted. I'd know; there are ghosts all over where I grew up. Isn't it difficult to fake architectural age? Or is there a technique for that?"     'Ha ha, thought so! You've got that air around you!'     "Thank you very much~ I do my best~" Oddly, Lilian is smiling too. She switches forks to stab at the cake next.     'I never really thought I'd ever meet a real true-life fancypants Brit in my life.'     Lilian does her very best not to inhale her own desert. She hunches forward, covers her hand with her mouth, and choke-giggles through the entire thing.
Lilian Rook	'Ah, not that that's bad, or nothing! It's good, I'd say! You've got a real movie star accent.'     "No, no, you're quite right; the ratio of bureaucrats speaking the BBC's own sacred tongue struck me too." she says, gossip-toned. "You'd never know it, but I had to work on mine. English is actually my second language, if only just."     'It's overnight, what won't they accept?~'     Lilian laughs again; louder, more conspiratorial, now feeling like the empty food court is very small and crowded. "My my, I don't often meet the sort who'd tell me that after getting the tip. Is that a challenge to come back~?"     'Yeah. If you're, um, if your leadership style is similar to how you describe The Timekeeper's, I appreciate you looking out for her properly.'     Lilian is partway through deciding whether she can get away with a sentence that's intentionally sexual next, when something Merel says catches her attention. The polite "Mm?" she makes has nothing to do with the expectancy of her stare. "My leadership style? Goodness, is she already talking about coming to work for me?"     'Could you pass this on to her, next time you see her?'     Lilian stares at the drawing for just on the verge of 'a weirdly long time', before folding it up and sliding it into her bag's outer compartment. "Oh, certainly. I can't say when it'll be though."     'She has a bit more freedom now than before, at the least.'     "Oh putting her in quarantine is just unacceptable though! I'm going to find that John Titor motherf-- and helpfully reminder her of workplace security policies in specific. But Mesmer did invite TTT right into the room, so isn't that consent to her visiting?"     'Shall I use that name, after all? Ah, but the reveal was spoiled prematurely.'     "Mmm~ I wasn't there for that~" Lilian says. "Doesn't count."     'I wonder how I might have fared, given the chance to have such schooling'     "Other than being the most popular girl in school~?" Lilian says. Someone should tell her to keep her thumb still.     'Well, now that you have said so, it seems obvious that I should have already thought to do so, myself.'     "I've checked in already, so you should give it a go; and then we can both go and show our support together! That poor girl's gone and put her nose to tight to the grindstone that she can't see the wheel on either side, and the nature of it all means she's able to speak with hardly anyone until she's done."
Regulus	The Guard might be a bit of a clumsy bird herself. ''By which department might you be employed?'' There are people here who know where she works for so she can't exactly say she works for the cafeteria. Before that, though, she blinks out a startled, "''That'' Tamamo-no-mae?" ''The SPDM largely instructs orphans.'' The Guard's expression falls as a dark cloud passes over her face. She doesn't get into her backstory though for very different reasons than a certain rocking pirate. She's an orphan now, thanks to the Storm, but she remembers her parents. "Yeah, mostly orphans." She says, gloomily. ''I can't say when it'll be though.'' "If I run into her first I'll tell her first." And probably make her a little cute drawing on the spot. As for Lilian's 'leadership style'. "Um--well, I haven't had a chance to talk to her, but I know she's been part of the outreach to the Paladins." She's honestly a bit envious, it feels like the Paladins get a lot of support. And then she finally exhales, unhappily. "And uh, I'm with the Vigiles." She can't exactly get away with lying about it with other people who know her department being here.
Tamamo	'Oh putting her in quarantine is just unacceptable though!'     "I thought so, too. Really, she is only an ordinary girl, when you reach the foundation of the matter. It would be wrong to ascribe either great danger or malevolence to one such as her, simply for the matter of a rare form, but such is what occurs too readily."     'Mmm~ I wasn't there for that~'     "True, true. We shall go on and save it for an appropriate occasion, then. With cards, of course."     'Other than being the most popular girl in school~?'     "I can imagine a terribly exciting time~. If I were a little younger, of course. It may be a bit different were I to try and enroll now, as Ms. Soroka did." Putting aside that Petra is 'a bit' younger.     '"That" Tamamo-no-mae?'     Tamamo stiffens -- subtly, but for her hand being under Lilian's. Truly, the only strange thing is just how rare this reaction is. Even in the former Japan of the 21st century, she's found that most people think of the Ayakashi Special Interests Symposium before anything else. Evenly, "Yes."     If Merel didn't go and confess, Tamamo might have simply forgotten to ask again. Instead she glances toward Lilian, plausibly for several purposes, but really because no one's mentioned the Vigiles to her before.