Participants:
| Scene Title | Annals and Clouds |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Richard tasks Odessa with two very important assignments, but with the promise of support. |
| Date | April 20, 2021 |
As the others drift out of the room one by one, Richard walks over to the counter to pour himself a drink, bourbon splashing into a glass. He brings it up, swirling it around in the snifter and watching the light refracting off the liquid and vessel before taking a long sip.
Once the door closes, he turns his head a bit and says quietly, “There’s a bit of a… hunt I’ve been on, but with both myself and Robyn going to another timeline I need someone else to pick up the lead.” He motions with the glass towards the good doctor, “It’s far too important to let fall by the wayside, and uh— given it involves your father’s work, I thought you might be ideal.”
Odessa refreshes her drink. More whiskey, more sour mix. Her gaze stays steady, flat and even on her task as Richard speaks. There are complicated feelings involved with the mention of the work her father did. Even more with the notion that Richard is leaving, and she’ll be left behind. Once the ice is crackling in the glass from the sudden competing temperature shift, she lifts her head.
“You mean Umbra.” Odessa meets Richard’s gaze and lifts her chin, holding for a moment before she brings it down again to nod. “Of course. Of course I’ll continue his legacy. Tell me what I need to know.”
“Yes. Umbra.”
Richard leans back against the edge of the counter where the drinks were sitting, directing a faint and tired smile her way as he elaborates, “So, a little background— ah, did you ever interact with Rebel at all? Or Drucker— T.Monk was his technopathic handle? I have no idea who was all involved with that stuff, back in the day and nobody talked to anybody else.”
There’s a rueful smile that plays on Odessa’s lips as she takes a drink from her glass, laughing softly as she lowers it again. “I don’t know if you’re aware, but even fewer people trusted me then than they do now. Nobody was talking to me about anything important. Certainly not any technopaths.”
Her smile turns sad. “Once Hiro stopped showing up…” With a sigh, the light leaves her eyes. “That was it. No more chances to be the hero. Just had to bide my time among the wolves and figure out which pack gave me the strongest chance of survival.” Misery starts to spread frost in her chest. “Cheers.”
Richard wrinkles up his nose a little as she mentions that, and he takes a swig of the drink in his hand. “Well, the past is the past,” he waves off with a brush of one hand through the air, “Regardless— Richard Drucker was the most powerful technopath of his time, by which I mean the Company’s era. Before he died, he realized that the redaction was coming, and encoded information into a series of vinyl records. Specifically, we believe that he encoded the details of Umbra into them.”
The drink’s swept casually through the air in indication, “You might not be aware, but technopaths are on the list of Evolved who can survive physical death. Drucker was active for some time before dying again… but his, uh, code was later incorporated into an amalgamated digital entity, which is searching for information about that component of his original self. S.Attva is its handle, and it’s the one that set us on this track.”
Odessa makes a noise of disgust in turn as she lowers her glass, but otherwise remains silent as Richard explains to her what the relevance is between these technopaths and her father’s work. Tension winds its way through her shoulders, her eyes shifting along her friend’s form and around the conference room, churning over how the pieces of the puzzle fit together.
When he finishes, she smiles absently. “There used to be a lot of records in my office in the Bronx. I wonder if there were secret messages now.” Odessa looks up, focused again. “Okay, so where do we look for them?”
“So… I have good news and bad news, there,” Richard’s hands spread a little, eyebrows going up, “…the good news is, there are tracer tags on the records with the Project Umbra data, apparently, according to one of the records we did acquire.”
He wrinkles up his nose, “The bad news is, it was the Company’s old satellite isotope trackers.”
Looking down at his drink, then back up, “I’ve asked the OEI to help me get the system back online— temporarily, anyway.”
Drawing a deep breath, Odessa exhales it slowly, letting it puff out her cheeks. “I’m going to need more whiskey.” Taking a seat, she sets her glass aside and pinches the bridge of her nose. “It’s not even a bad idea,” she’s forced to admit. “I’m just not sure how I feel about that database winding up in OEI hands. You have people in SESA. Can’t they make this happen without involving the Exterior?”
Tipping her blonde head back, those fingers stay pinched, as if to stanch a nosebleed. “But you’ve already asked them,” she concedes, “which means this is a foregone conclusion.” Coming back to center, darkened brows lift. “Where do I come in?”
“No, because the satellites launch we need is from outside the United States,” admits Richard with a grimace, taking another swig of his drink, “But let’s be honest— the government likely has that database anyway, and the network’s not likely to survive the oncoming solar events, even if we stop the big one.”
He steps away from the counter, moving over to sink into a seat at the table, “Well, I won’t be here to collect the information if it gets here — Robyn has some plan in mind too, I’ve told her to make sure the data goes to you instead of Dana if hers succeeds. I’ll need to introduce you to S.Attva, too, so you can get the information to him as needed.”
He pulls out one of the table’s drawers, and from it produces a shiny case, that he removes his phone from and starts powering it back on.
“I suppose it’s hard to argue with all of that.” They need to save the world first. If the government turns out to be corrupt — again — they’ll deal with that when the time comes. “I bet most from that database are already on the radar again or… dead anyway.” Which is morbid and perhaps even a touch demoralizing, and there was a time where Odessa Price would have moved cheerfully past that.
That woman exists only in memory now. “Dana’s seemed perfectly nice, but I think you’re right to have the information passed my way. I’m no computer scientist, but… I certainly know where to look for them.” Her head tilts as she watches Richard retrieve his phone and remove what she can only assume are the safety measures and anti-technopath precautions.
“It’s less the searching that I need you for and more the data itself once it’s located,” Richard admits, “We’re going to need to crack Umbra if we’re going to have a chance in hell against the Entity, and you’re probably the best chance we have of that. There’s only a handful of geneticists aside from you that I can name that I think would have a chance with this, and most of them are dead like Zimmerman or missing like Varlane.”
Once his phone’s back on the network, he sets it down and sends a text message out into the void, setting the phone to speaker and leaning back.
S.Attva, are you available?
Of course. comes a highly synthesized voice through the speaker that sounds like a many-layered composite of other voices. Possibly millions of voices collected in sample over telephone conversations.
To what do I owe this inquiry?
Odessa lifts her head sharply and looks around the room, as though she’d see the source(s) of the voice(s). Her blood’s run cold. “What the fuck is that?” Blue eyes grow wide and she looks like a frightened rabbit, like she might bolt at any time.
If nothing else, it provides a very convenient distraction to the fact that she was starting to restlessly shift from one foot to the other at the mention of Varlane.
“Who is that?” the blonde demands. Closing her eyes tightly, it seems as though she might be trying to will the world away, cowering from it. Instead, she’s reaching out with her ability, trying desperately to find some sort of signature.
“That’s a… complicated question, but the short version is ‘a digital sentience amalgamated from the remains of multiple bodiless technopaths’,” Richard explains carefully - if a bit ruefully - before glancing down to the phone and quoting, “Therefore as a stranger give it welcome. There are more things under heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
He clears his throat, “S.Attva, this is Doctor Pride— both myself and Robyn are going to be… out of touch for some time, or permanently if things go poorly, and she’ll be collecting the data from Drucker’s old records in our absence.”
Hello, Doctor Pride. My name is S.Attva. It appears we will be working together for a time. Richard has done well in consolidating the fundamentals of my identity, but if you have further inquiries do not hesitate to interject them.
Odessa first opens one eye, then the other. Her gaze shifts to Richard apprehensively. “You sound like Kazimir,” she murmurs softly. It’s meant to be a joke, but it’s also not, given the ghosts that follow him.
The fact that she isn’t getting an emotional signature is something of a comfort, for all that it’s also disconcerting. It’s just the kind of disconcerting that means she isn’t — hopefully — vulnerable in the way she fears. Taking a breath, she straightens her back. “Hello, S.Attva. You can call me O. But Doctor Pride is fine if you prefer titles.”
She smiles hesitantly. “I can normally tell where I should look when I’m speaking to someone. Is there somewhere I should look while I’m speaking to you? I assume you can see me.” Self-consciously, Odessa fusses with her blonde hair. “And you’re… Drucker, right? Who else are you? Were? No… Are. Even if you’re something — someone — new, you’re still who you are.” She reasons her way through the conundrum of the bodiless gestalt.
Maybe it will help her figure out how to explain herself.
Richard remains quiet for a moment as the two speak, giving them time to get acquainted/. At the comment about Kazimir, he doesn’t visibly react - but he’s not looking at her. At her latter words, he says dryly, “They //shouldn’t be able to see us unless you’re standing in front of the phone camera, I do try and keep the building’s security systems air-gapped from the Internet for this very reason.”
Odessa gives a slow nod of her head to indicate her understanding, the corner of her mouth ticked up slightly. “So then this is like a phone call, and we’re on speaker.” It comes together for her bit by bit. The technopath is less omniscient than she’d originally suspected — or feared.
Who I was is less important than who I am now. But for clarity’s sake, I was once Richard Drucker, yes. But I was also Micah Sanders. I was also Shen Ningdao. I am both more and less than the sum of their parts. I am also, in a way, Hana Gitelman in so much as I am her recollection of me. A mirror reflected back at myself.
There is a moment of silence interspersed with intermittent static. When S.Attva’s voice comes back over the line, it sounds distorted.
Apologies, I needed to move to another satellite. Heaven is in tumult. But this will not stop me from being able to assist you in collating the data you are uncovering, O.
Slowly, the explanation helps put the pieces of that particular puzzle together for her. Odessa nods her head, even if S.Attva can’t see her. “Heaven is in tumult,” she repeats on a breath of laughter. “I’m sure it is.” She offers a small smile to Richard, an assurance that she’s doing alright with all of this.
“I’m a geneticist.” She pauses self-consciously and posits, “Maybe you knew that already.” Odessa stops herself from reaching up to twist the same strand of hair in her fingers again. She needs a less girlish, childish fidget. “I’m looking into the work of my f—”
Coughing quietly, the sort that isn’t really a cough at all, and looking down at her feet suddenly, her blue eyes widen and her fingers curl into small fists at her sides. A slow breath allows her to assure herself that the near slip is fine. “Excuse me, sorry about that. As I was saying, I’m looking into the work of a former Company scientist. His name was Doctor Price.”
For that, there’s a little smile that’s both strained and astonished. She’s never called her father by that title before. Her title. The one so many insist she didn’t earn. Odessa presses her tongue against the tip of one canine and continues. “He was working on a project called Umbra. I’m looking into the details of that, specifically. Do you think you can help, S.Attva?”
“It’s just going to get worse up there,” Richard grimaces as he hears the static, “I assume you’re aware of the coronal disturbance, since I’m sure you have access to the relevant satellites up there - I have a feeling Drucker was monitoring them at some point himself.”
He doesn’t otherwise interject, though he slants a look over to Odessa as she slips, lips twitching just a little in an almost-smile.
I am aware of anomalous solar activity, yes. S.Attva says in a way that someone who isn’t aware of the impending end of the world might. As for your inquiry, Doctor, I am unfamiliar with a Company scientist by that name, but my memories of Richard Drucker are extremely fragmented and primarily consist of what Hana remembered of me. I am as much a reflection of how she viewed him as I am parts of his once-sundered whole.
Static crackles briefly over the line, but S.Attva is still there. Most Company records were hard copies, paper. Not my speciality. However, I am aware that a digital copy of such records was abducted from a secure facility in Kansas by individuals aligned with the organization known as Mazdak. The paper records likely still remain in the care of the Deveaux Society, based out of the NYC Safe Zone.
I can help analyze digitized data, but I cannot help you sort through boxes of musty old files. Do with that knowledge as you will.
Odessa nods along and alternatively shakes her head. “Well, sorting through musty boxes of paperwork is something I can do, fortunately.” She starts to turn to Richard, but shifts direction with a tilt of her head and a quizzical lift of her brow. “Are you able to get inside the Deveaux Society’s systems, S.Attva?”
A sliver of a smirk is directed at Richard then, a light to her eyes. He knows this look. Though her appearance has changed drastically, those eyes are exactly the same. Odessa is contemplating mischief and, most likely, just shy of asking for buy-in.
Richard says a bit dryly - but not without a hint of amusement, “Leave me out of that conversation, for deniability reasons, please. Get the job done.”
He hesitates, then, glancing over to the door as if thinking about someone not present - then draws in a slow breath. “Okay. S.Attva…” One hand comes up to rub between his eyes, “The anomalous solar activity is noted in all active timelines. We are… working on a solution, because data suggests that if we do not find one…”
“We’re looking at an extinction event.”
Interesting.
There is a long silence that follows. Then, as if nothing of the sort had been said S.Attva carries on with the directive at hand:
I cannot gain access to the Deveaux Group’s systems in any meaningful capacity. Building security, camera systems, but their databases may be air-gapped and kept offline with no remote access capability. Or, simply nonexistent. The former seems more likely than the latter.
S.Attva’s minimal-to-non-reaction has Odessa smirking faintly. There was a time where she would just have leaned in real close, eyes wide and hungry, simply to ask Really? Now, of course, she’s grown quite fond of being a citizen of the world. She’d like it to go on spinning with humanity still causing trouble. She’s been down the other road more than twice.
“Understood,” she intones quietly. It’s like the universe wants her to break and enter. That used to be way easier. Wait for someone who’s meant to be there to stroll in, either follow them or snatch their credentials, then make her own way.
“For the sake of argument,” Odessa poses to Richard, “let’s say I’m not going to break in. Because that would be illegal and I’m not doing illegal things. Can you just fake CIA your way into it?” Her eyes narrow. “Or am I not supposed to refer to that either?”
It’s all well and good when Richard breaks the law, but when Odessa does it, someone call the goddamned tribunal.
“How long until we can get the data from the satellites?” Odessa taps her nails on her discarded glass. “The hard copies aren’t likely to do me much good until I can get my hands on the actual data needed to complete or recreate the work. Are you able to expedite the process, S.Attva?”
“I— here,” Richard rolls his eyes, offering out a hand, “Give me your phone, I’ll put in Monica’s number. Call her and say ‘Hi, I work for Richard, I need access to X’. Social networking works better than breaking and entering, and that’s me talking.”
A shake of his head, “And— I don’t know. It depends on how seriously the OEI is taking my request, honestly. Until we get control of whatever’s left of the old Company network to spot those records…”
Huffing out a breath of laughter, Odessa shrugs her shoulders and retrieves her phone, passing it to Richard after unlocking it. She does not take it out of airplane mode. “Just promise you’ll call ahead and let her know I’m legit.”
I can monitor the satellites. I am familiar with them. But reactivating them would require on-site repairs, they have suffered damage in the intervening years. As the United States does not have an active space program, I am uncertain of how quickly that can be accomplished. New Satellite launches would also face a similar delay. But as soon as they are online, I will be certain to let you know.
“That figures,” Richard mutters under his breath as he taps in the phone number into contacts, “Nothing works anymore, and if it would have still been working, that asshole from the future set it on fire. Did you know that maniac blew up the HAARP? Do you know how fucking useful that thing would be right now?”
Offering it back, he allows dryly, “Sometimes I think he wanted to make sure that if he was the one that lost, there wouldn’t be anything left for the rest of us. Anyway, this is her personal number— the code phrase is ‘Peach Fire’.”
“Okay, full disclosure, I don’t know shit about… Satellites and tracking isotopes, but if we were able to find documentation on the frequencies…” Odessa tips her head to one side, dithering on whether what she's suggesting sounds asinine or not. With a sigh, she seeks the external confirmation from S.Attva. “Would that help?”
Taking back her phone from Richard, the leggy blonde fixes him with a bewildered look. “You mean like hot ass?” What the fuck? “Wait.” Confusion gives way to hurt that masquerades as incredulity. “Are you two—?”
Demonstratively, Odessa lifts one hand, curling her index finger together with her thumb to make a circle. The other hand lifts, index finger extended, and it slips into and out of the circle three times, her brows up and gaze fixed on Richard.
Richard brings a hand up to clap over his face, exhaling a long-suffering sigh. “…formerly.” Damn it. Why does everyone seem to know this emoji language?
“When?” Odessa whispers, mouth having dropped open in shock. She has to know now.
“What?” Richard’s hand drops, and he looks back at her with an utterly baffled expression, “I— fuck, I don’t have a little black book with dates in it, it’s ancient history at this point. Why— look, can we focus on the end of the world right now and not my love life? At least in front of the purusha?”
Scowling and tapping her nails against the back of her phone before she swipes it off the table to pocket it again, she shrugs her shoulders. The universal sign of whatever.
She’s not jealous.
Odessa smiles as insincerely as he’s ever seen her do. “Of course.”
I’m still here. Just so you are aware.
That said, no. Without a specialized satellite to track the isotopes radioactive materials, no frequency would be of use. It is a hardware limitation we are up against. That said, there are not-technological resources you could employ.
But you would need to find someone with the right ability. Whatever that looks like.
Clearing her throat and having the good grace to look sheepish, Odessa wraps her arms around herself. “So,” she begins tentatively, trying to kick herself back into the right gear, while never having been totally sure what that was in the first place, “someone who deals with…”
Blue eyes fix on Richard, a hapless look is exchanged. “Radio…waves?” This is almost as bad as trying to come up with the answers on Jeopardy.
Richard’s brow knits in an honest look of confusion as he watches Odessa a moment, then turns back to the phone with a shake of his head. “..hm. I know a radiokinetic— a technopath specializing in radio waves. We’ve got a guy who can see electromagnetic fields… what sort of sensory ability would work for something like that?”
Radiation. S.Attva clarifies. Someone capable of detecting atomic decay against ambient background radiation at extreme distances. The radioisotopes are exactly that, isotopes. That is what makes the sensors in the Company’s satellites so specific, they are designed to detect the decay of the particularly low-yield tracking isotope to a degree of specification in miles of radius. I imagine newer technology may have finer detection capabilities, but I have not researched such.
Odessa nods her head slowly, asiding to Richard, “That’s not my type of science. Maybe… talk to Gatter?” Frowning thoughtfully, she mulls over the problem in front of them. “So, theoretically, if I can find hard copy information, we can at least use the data to… I don’t know, fashion a device that would work at shorter ranges? It might be enough until…”
The breath leaves Odessa in one push and she reaches up to wipe away unbidden tears that have snuck up on her. “Uhm… If we started where we have some kind of inkling, maybe we might find something while we work on a way to cast a wider net?” Her voice gets thinner the longer she speaks. Pressing her lips together, she glances to Richard, though she doesn’t lift her head from the position she’s adopted of her chin tucked against her chest. “Do you think you can get me clearance to travel to Odessa? I might be able to find something there.” Swallowing the lump attempting to form in her throat, she reasons, “Maybe find out what they did with whatever was retrieved from Luis’ home.”
Both are longshots, sure, but there’d be some comfort in standing again in the place where her roots were formed.
“We’ll have to put in a request to SESA, ask if they have any personnel with a matching ability, or know of any that are selling their skills openly…” Richard grimaces, “It’s a long shot, but we might get lucky. You never know.”
He glances to Odessa then, pausing with a frown. “Getting access to that might be hard, but— no, wait. Get Julie. She’s his next-of-kin, technically, so she should be able to have legal access, especially with Raytech credentials backing it up - get Agent Hall to clear any barriers between you and there, since this is DOE-attached work.”
“Julie?” Odessa’s brows jump. “Are you insane?” One slip and if Julie Fournier-Raith finds out who Ourania Pride actually is, and Odessa won’t be safe. “Do you know the only thing that saved me from her stabbing me in the back was that Gray got to me first?”
“Then you’d better work that out with her,” says Richard firmly, “I think she needs that as much as you do.”
It appears we have a plan. S.Attva notes in extrication of himself from the path the conversation has taken. I will stick to it until such a time as I am requested otherwise. Should I learn anything further I will be in touch. You know how to find me.
Odessa nods her head for S.Attva more than Richard. She thinks he's setting her up for a knife in whatever location Julie Fournier-Raith find most convenient at the time. "Thank you, Sattva," she responds with genuine gratitude. "I'll try to reach out to you if I have some kind of break."
“Thank you, S.Attva. We appreciate the assistance,” Richard says, reaching over then to turn off the phone. He closes his eyes, drawing in a slow breath before straightening and turning towards Odessa.
“Julie is fucked, Des,” he says quietly, “I have a UN Observer permanently on campus to keep an eye on her. She’s repeatedly refused to enter into court-ordered therapy and she’s concealed parts of her work history— this is the only place she can even work anymore. Nobody else will give her a chance.”
He looks at her steadily, “We both owe her a better life than that. She needs closure, and she needs to be involved. And she needs us to be there for her.”
“I know we’re not related by blood, but maybe there’s some nurture there,” Odessa murmurs, astonished in a frankly aghast manner. “She was a child, Richard. Why are they treating her like a step down from how they treat me? She was dying. She didn’t have a choice but to stay there. She didn’t have any choice but to participate in… those experiments.”
Now, the restless pacing no longer calls to her. Now, she sits down heavily, her head in her hands. “When I handed off that equipment and explained how to keep her alive… She was supposed to be safe.” Odessa’s voice trembles, her fingers dig into her hair. “Julie was supposed to be able to start to build a normal life.”
A breath of wry laughter comes amid the tears. “The court-ordered therapy makes sense. But why the gaps in the… Who has she been working for?” Odessa lifts her head and stares at Richard in horror. How could the girl she wanted so much to keep from becoming like her sound so much like her right now?
“I don’t know.” Richard closes his eyes, giving his head a shake, “She quit Elmhurst suddenly. There’s an employment gap of two years that she lied to me about, so I don’t know what she’s been up to— that’s when she stopped getting in touch with her ‘wellness officer’.”
He exhales a sigh, “I’m not happy about what happened with her either, but— all the records, the things she was doing there, were pretty damning. If she hadn’t been a minor she would’ve been on the gallows, Des. Apparently once she’s twenty-five, the restrictions all go away, but she’s making things as hard as possible for everyone involved. She doesn’t know— “
A bit sharply, “She isn’t aware of the observer. She doesn’t know why she’s been denied other employment— it’s because the other places she applied to didn’t want to deal with the observer. I already have enough eyes on me that I don’t mind as much, but I didn’t tell her that they’re reviewing everything she does. If she thought for a second I was employing her out of pity, it’d crush her. And it’s not true anyway.”
“I’m sure the UN is thrilled that she’s here, working with me.” If the UN doesn’t know Odessa’s here, then she’d be surprised, given her arrangement with her own government. “Wait.” Her eyes widen, fear plainly evident. “Does my being here jeopardize her in any way?”
“What? No, not unless you go committing war crimes with her,” Richard shakes his head, “And going through her father’s belongings— there’s nothing illegal about it.”
He gives her a wry look. She did just suggest breaking into the Clocktower, after all. “Just make sure there isn’t.”
The joke (that probably honestly isn’t a joke) strikes a nerve and it’s easily seen in the tightening of the muscles in Odessa’s face — the way her eyes narrow and her lips flatten out, the set of her jaw — and sees her hands falling to her lap, knuckles white from curling her fingers in so tightly.
“Well thanks for that,” she mutters back, no snap to it, but it’s as bitter as the pitch she keeps trying to pass off as coffee. But she breathes it out again. Forces herself to shove whatever resentment exists back into the box she keeps it stored in, locking it up tight for now.
“I love that kid, okay?” A tired little laugh follows that. “She’s not a kid anymore, huh?” Which is the problem they’re faced with. Much like Odessa, Julie Fournier-Raith hasn’t been a kid for a long, long time, if she ever truly was. “I’ll do whatever you say will help her. But if you get even a hint that they’re coming for her, you have to tell me. If there’s anything I can do to keep them from destroying her life,” or taking it, “there… There’s nothing I won’t do for her.”
Maybe a few things, but that isn’t important right now, is it? What’s important is that they never become important.
“Make the arrangements. I’ll do what needs doing. I’ll keep an eye on her.”
“You’ve been where she is, Odessa,” replies Richard, not pulling back an inch from the reaction to that ‘joke’, though his tone is softer now, “If anyone understands where she’s coming from, it’s you.”
He swipes the phone back off the table, tucking it away, “I’ll go send some emails and make arrangements. Never any rest saving the world, after all.”
“Yeah,” Odessa sighs heavily. “Yeah.”
Another long exhale is pushed out through pursed lips. “I’ll… I need a minute, then I’ll head back to the lab. I—” She gets to her feet and wraps her arms around Richard in a tight, but brief hug. “Okay.” She pats his arm and nudges him toward the door. “If you don’t head back out there, I’m going to start crying. Again.” She smiles, but it’s a tenuous thing. “I’ll be okay. Promise.”
But after the door closes and the footsteps fade, Odessa sinks down into that seat again and takes out her own phone. This is one of those numbers she doesn’t dial from memory, but rather has a speed dial for. A long press of the 3 brings up a number and the green icon sends the call to connect. That it finds voicemail is no surprise.
“Do- Doctor Madison, I— Everleigh. I know it’s not my day for session, but I really need to talk…”