[Archive] With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Story Only)

[Mr Zoat]

16th October 2013
17:31 G.M.T.

Darn-.

I transition as the beta club swings through where my head used to be-. And come up short, because the yellow crystals are deploying. Right, tether a slab of concrete, pull it into my hands before the tether fades away-.

Purple energy erupts from the end of the club-! My kinetic barrier flares, and I feel a weak tingling in my hands as a small amount of the nerve beam bleeds through, but that's about it. Throw the concrete at his face-

"Ragh!"

-and use my armour's flight system to fly upwards before-.

Uh-?

BOOF!

"RRAH!"

Oof!

Right… Kalibak's fast and agile. Right leg armour is buckled, though my actual leg feels more or less alright. Back… Ah, yeah, kinetic barrier doing a hero's work there. Brick's a bit shredded-.

"Hshhahhkhakhk!"

Oh, I've got yellow crystal dust inside my armour. And now I've got no translation.

"Do you feel fear, Lantern?!" Kalibak shoves what's left of the wall aside with brute force, grinning at me as I pick myself up. "Do you see that you cannot stand against a New God?"

And… I can smell my environment, just about. Mould, burned petrochemicals, and… Just faintly, rotting flesh.

I trigger my armour's radio. "Gaart, head out. I'll hold Kalibak's attention."

"Hkhhkskkkhshh!"

"Is your spirit so weak?" Kalibak points the end of his club at me. "Or will you meet your end on your feet?"

Fine. Fists raised, march towards him. He grins, turning his club to the side a little, clearly indicating that he'll use it as a melee weapon rather than a ranged weapon. Set crumble field to maximum intensity and minimum range, and brac-.

Ooohf!

He bull rushed me! He's pinned me to his -ohf!- chest, charging -ohf!- through the walls! My kinetic barrier doesn't -ohf!- know when it's supposed to trigger!

I bring my fists around and smash them into his ears!

"Mnrh!"

I see the smoke emerge as the crumbler -ohf!- field starts eating through his flesh and hair! Can't reach his eyes from -ohf!- here-. Lower the right one to his neck-

"Gah!"

-and deactivate the left, deploy a x-ionised knife and stab-.

OOF!

"RRAAAAAGH!"

And pick-. Oh dear. Can't see the rear of my armour, but my power assistance appears to be acting up. Kalibak's sort of twitching from the knife I jammed into his skull, hands trying to reach-.

I'm not sure if it's the effect of having a bit of metal in that part of his brain or if he's just that muscle bound, but it looks like he's having trouble reaching it. Okay, is the armour's flight system working? Yes, sort of-. Okay.

Fzzzm!

Ah, right, the parademons. They fell behind a little in Kalibak's charge, but they're trying to get line of sight-.

Oh, he dropped-.

I lunge clumsily forward and grab Kalibak's beta rod. He manages to focus on me a little as I raise it up, but he can't coordinate his hands well enough to block it as I swing it down…

"Nuuuuugh!"

Right onto the knife. Which sinks further into his head, the handle flattened against his scalp.

Okay, good. Can't work out how to switch it to ranged mode and I can't risk crumbling it in case it explodes…

Toss it aside, turn and run!

Fzzzm! Fzzzm! Fzzzm!

Armour might not be working properly, but its mass is alright at preventing the shots from the parademons hitting anything vital.

"Gaart, I don't know where I'm going. Can you throw up a sign?"

"Hshhks?"

I crumbler-punch my way through a wall, then flick my eyes upwards. A few parademons are perched on the walls above me, but it looks like they weren't expecting me to come in this direction. Slow off the mark. Okay, is the stealth system working..? Uh, sort of. Phasing is a pipedream, but the holographic system is… Kind of working? Might give me a few extra seconds. Add in the kinetic belt's flight system… Alright, jump system, it's letting me go a little faster without drawing fire.

And then I see a shot from one of the parademon's weapons going straight up… Good work, Gaart. Okay, I'm running along… Some sort of old… Loading dock? Cover's a bit sparse, but nothing's trying to shoot me right now-. Ah! I see! There's where I came in, and there are the scattering slaves, who aren't fleeing so much as taking cover. No guards-.

Fzzzm! Fzzzm! Fzzzm! Fzzzm!

They're swarming, but they're just guessing at my location.

"Hk-kk-ksk?"

"Sorry, translation system is still out. I saw the shot-" I jump down, back onto the road I first entered by. "-and I'm heading your way."

A couple of slaves stare at the me-shaped blur as I run past their hidey-hole, and I start to see the glow from either Lantern Qarrigat or Lantern Gaart's dome shield construct. A couple of parademons are firing on it, but-. It's Gaart, and he's keeping it up well.

"Okay, go!"

Gaart glances towards me, and then alters the shield to only block shots from above. I dash past him, and-.

There we go, back in the tunnel. Step aside, and prepare crumbler gauntlets just in case the objects in there are capable of existing outside-.

Gaart darts out and then freezes, staring at his own hands. He glances back at the start of the projection area-.

"I told you. He wasn't real."

He focuses for a moment, and then nods.

"Right, now I need you to help me clean out my armour before the mine security get here."

"I'll get right on that."

 

[Mr Zoat]

16th October 2013
17:35 G.M.T.

Gaart's construct pump sucks the air out of my armour near the breaches, and then fails as the powdered yellow crystal that was trapped inside gets sucked out along with it. And… Yes, I'm back in business.

"Good work."

Repair my armour, and… Uh, add an external positron beam projector mount. Not worth making it a standard thing, but this situation rather demands it.

"Illustres to Lantern Jordan. Still alive?"

"Yeah, still here. Find anything?"

"Found Lantern Gaart and I found where the yellow crystal nullifying our constructs is coming from. They're collecting it from part of the Apokoliptian training equipment."

"So, what..? Apokolips can just make as much as they want?"

"That would be my fear. Or there might be something here that allows them to make it, or it might require particular materials that are in limited supply. We should ask-."

Jordan's face winces and the image is disrupted.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah. Too close and they can actually hit me, too far away and they lose interest." He looks around where he is for a moment. "Ask Scott and Barda, right?"

"Or New Genesis. I do not want Grayven getting his hands on this."

"Not worried about a repeat of Mannheim?"

"Earth can handle something like that, but if Grayven gets serious about disrupting the Orange Lantern Corps' activity, not only will that severely mess up our war fighting ability, but it also-."

"The Reach will get it, and that's bad for everyone." Lantern Gaart's ring glimmers for a moment, and then Jordan's head appears over it as well. "Gaart, good to see you're in one piece."

"Yes sir."

"Any idea where Lantern Niiniini got to?"

"They were taken prisoner at the same time as me. If they're not here and their ring hasn't chosen a new bearer, I don't know."

"Paul, is that the only mine on the planet?"

I nod. "It's the only one I've seen. I haven't explored the whole place, but as far as I can tell they're focusing on expanding the digging here rather than exploring new sites. The important point there is that the training area only produced yellow crystals in response to Lantern Gaart's presence. Just removing him is going to make them useless until they dig down a lot further."

"Okay. Don't have a fleet laying around, do you?"

"There's the Doomsday."

"Could it fight this whole fleet?"

"It wouldn't win, but we could charge up a bunch of kryptonian volunteers. They could. Or we could let Apokolips know they're being burgled. Does the Green Lantern Corps have a fleet?"

"Yeah, but it's not that big, and all the ships work off green batteries. How about Legion?"

"Even if we could spare a fleet, I'd have to drag it here myself, so it wouldn't get here all that quickly."

"Alright. Can you get back up here?"

"Easily."

"Gaart?"

"I could use a recharge. But I can fly around to the far side of the planet, and escape that way?"

"You didn't bring your personal lantern with you?"

"I always thought it was a risk. Especially on a planet owned by Apokolips."

Jordan sighs. "What are you on now?"

"Fourteen percent."

"Okay. Paul, can you bring him up faster?"

"Yes. Easily."

"Gaart, you can recharge from my lantern. I've got an idea for the fleet."

"And the slaves?"

"I don't have anywhere to put them. Do you?"

"No. But this place is dangerous enough that they evacuate the slave workers before the sun goes down."

"If this takes more than two hours I'm handing in my ring."

I nod. "Alright. Be with you soon." His face disappears from Gaart's ring. "Gaart, do you think it would risk attack by the native animal life if I killed a few dozen of the overseers on the way out?"

He licks his left eye in confusion. "Kill?"

"I know that the Green Lantern Corps prefer to maroon pirates, but in this case-."

"I was planning on handing them over for trial. I-. Is that not how your Corps does things?"

"In the case of minor crimes, it is. In the case of interstellar warlords, I don't see the advantage."

"The Dread Horde is meritocratic. A lot of the officers who command their ships started out as labourers in places like this, and rose up the ranks."

"Right, but I imagine that to do that, they had to do some pretty unpleasant things."

"Yes, but the regular soldiers haven't. If they're helped to get away from it, they can eventually be returned to normal society."

Right. Green Lanterns are police, not soldiers.

"So, leave them alive?"

"If possible, yes."

"Fine." Right. Be a little awkward to sneak out with him hanging around… "Hold still a moment."

I scan him. Nothing about his physiology that would make stealth armour dangerous or risky. Since he doesn't know the controls I'd have to slave it to mine, but that's not a problem. And there's no problem with him keeping it afterwards.

"I'm going to give you a lighter version of my armour, and then we're going to sneak out. You'll need to keep your environmental shield around your body and not around the armour, or you'll still glow. Can you manage that?"

"Yes."

"Alright then. Let's get out of here."

 

[Mr Zoat]

27th April 2258
16:56 G.M.T.

"I am humbled by your presence, princess."

My gaim passenger is faultlessly well-behaved. Even though they're in control of my physical actions, they asked first and haven't cut me off from my senses. It would be simple for me to retake control. But I won't, because this is what we agreed to.

And because I suspect my passenger's sense of contentment is the main reason why I'm not panicking right now. Gaim royals are… Um. Not humanoid. And they're large. And they're… All the worst parts of sea anemone, caterpillar and assassin bug, with a little tyranid thrown in for good measure. The princess I'm speaking to is basically a senior civil servant along with a genetic engineer and brood mother, and completed eggs are being continuously taken away as she and my passenger speak.

There's a gaim diplomat on standby, but since I can understand the pure gaim language perfectly well they're mostly staying out of the way.

"The queen remembers you, Koh'dak. The gene strands used to give rise to your mind found much favour in our creative genelines after your disappearance. It closes the book in a pleasant manner to know what became of you."

Because it turns out that my passenger was a great inventor from the gaim's total war period, and they mostly wanted to come back here in case they were supposed to receive punishment from their goddess-mother.

"I-. I am-. I am relieved, daughter-of-our-queen."

"There are not further matters which require your attention. No further duties for you. You may… Rest."

"Thank you." / Thank you.

And… They're gone… I suppose that having their princess tell them that they were allowed to die was… What they wanted.

Huh.

I stand up, trying… Not to look at the princess more than I have to.

"Thank you for agreeing to speak with my former guest, princess, it-."

"I have decided not to eat you."

…

Scan nearest escape route. Ah, okay, that's not too bad.

"I… Have decided not to eat you as well."

The ambassador gaim makes a choke-hiss noise which the ring doesn't translate. The queen -who is quite a bit bigger than me- doesn't really react.

"You are not aware. Gaim are materialists. Our queens are our absolute sovereigns, and they are physical beings. We reject all religious concepts. We believe in no gods, no afterlife. The last time a gaim suggested changing this policy, they were punished with consumption."

"And… You just spoke to a dead person."

"Yes. That will have to be… Discussed. Do you have more information on how the soul hunters 'harvest' souls?"

"Sorry, no. I've been trying to avoid them."

"Is it a copy of the mind, or something else?"

I shake my head, realising as I do it that she probably can't even see a gesture that small. "I've wondered if they're just engrams myself, but I'm afraid that I haven't been able to find out."

"I am grateful for this new evidence. Often, species attempt to proselytise with make believe. That is irritating."

"I will bear that in mind."

"Should you discover new evidence, we would be interested to review it."

"If I proved the existence of the soul, I assure you, I wouldn't keep that to myself."

"Good." She… Er… I'm not exactly sure what that is, but she's rubbing it. Since I'm not getting a translation I'm going to assume that it's not an effort to communicate something to me. "You have not mentioned remuneration."

"No. Koh'dak already paid. They assisted me with a personal matter, and I delivered them here. Nothing more is necessary."

"But we have an obligation, in addition to what you did for Koh'dak."

"Ah… Thank you? There's nothing that I need at the moment. But… If I could bank the favour, in case there's something the gaim can help me with in the future?"

"A commensurate favour would be acceptable." That's a relief. "Then if there is nothing else, I declare this audience over."

I bow. "Thank you, your highness."

And then I turn and leave, a group of other gaim already filing in to discuss… Something. Yeah, I… Know that now they've abandoned their state of constant interhival warfare they're actually pretty easy to get along with, but looking at them is… A… Little off-putting.

And I'm out, and I'm hurrying along the corridor in the direction of my shuttle. Ring, contact ship.

"Are we leaving now?"

"Yep, yep, can't think of a reason to stay."

"You usually say that you want to see the sites."

"N'chak'fah has a chlorine atmosphere. I can't see anything."

"Ah."

"Is there something..? You want to see?"

"Narns on this world are marked for death. I have been keeping away from the windows."

Something sharing the corridor with me sneezes at me, and I nod politely back. "Oh? Why's that?"

"We invaded them forty years ago. At first, we didn't realise the planet was inhabited."

"Reasonable. I can barely see my hand in front of my face."

"And then we didn't realise they were intelligent. I understand that they didn't realise that the rest of the universe existed until they met us. I suppose it was nearly as unpleasant an introduction to other species as we had."

"Yes, a giant black spaceship digging a canyon through a major settlement must have been a nasty surprise."

"…" … "I was talking about the centauri."

"Oh."

"What black ships?"

"They're in the Book of G'Quan?"

"I haven't read it. Narns generally only read the sacred text of their own faith."

"I haven't read any human holy books. But the historical parts are interesting, if only because it explains what happened to your telepaths."

"We killed them all."

"If the Book's accurate, you only killed most of them. And to be fair, we nearly did that as well."

But you did not. And I do not think that you would have gone through with it.

I don't know. Future people are weird.

I reach the shuttle, and… Airlock, because magicing the chlorine away with the orange light would be a little obvious.

"I'll be up soon."

"We're ready to leave. Unless the hyperspace currents are unusually vicious, we will be back in time for your date."

 

[Mr Zoat]

16th October 2013
17:41 G.M.T.

"…not safe, but it should let you hold out until the fleet either moves on or gets destroyed."

Grum the Escaped… Ah, Walked Off Slave taps the wall of his newly fabricated bunker, and glances back at the NEMO-brand ration packs I dumped on the floor.

"It's the nicest place I've slept in seven years."

"Ah, you're welcome. Try not to die in the next half hour."

His eyes move from me to where Lantern Gaart is studying a map of local space. "You know? I think I will. Thank you."

"Thank me by not dying. I hate wasting effort. Gaart, ready?"

He dismisses his construct. "Yes."

"Right. Activating armour-" We both vanish, though I can still see him with empathic vision. "-and up we go."

The ground falls away beneath us, nothing like as fast as we can fly with constructs, but certainly faster than, say, a rocket launch. We're both undetectable by most forms of sensor and hard to detect by the really exotic ones I know about, and our armour is sufficiently tough that what I don't know shouldn't hurt us. A direct hit with a spatial charge would probably kill us, which would be too bad for Lantern Gaart but is the reason why Grum's bunker came with one of my spare bodies in an under-floor compartment. An Apokoliptian world should be at least a little thaumically active, if only due to their presence.

Of course, that shouldn't be possible. The battleships all share the same orientation, though they've spread out a little, presumably to increase the volume of space they can cover with their weapons fire as they try to kill Jordan. Advanced stealth should mean that they still think that I'm around the mine, so hopefully they won't be looking… If they know that I'm heading up the most efficient course of action would be to do a saturation bombardment of the upper atmosphere. That would cover the area with crystal remnants, create dangerous pressure waves along with whatever's in the charge, and would generally give me a bad time, but…

Yep, we've made it into the vacuum and-.

I was going to say that the fleet hasn't moved, but I can see assault shuttles heading down from two of the battleships. And for a moment I feel the instinct bred into me by a dozen battles with the Reach: board the ship at once, kill or assimilate the Reach commander while the best marines and Beetles and whatever experimental weapons they might have are somewhere else. But with an anti-construct silver bullet… I don't think that's a mission I can complete with power armour alone.

So we fly past the battleships, their tenders and close-support escorts, and then the… Huh. Sensor buoys? They don't seem to detect us but I don't want to risk an active scan. And then the cruisers…

And we're clear. Track the orientation of their weapons, likely response times of the crew… Just have to get a little further away…

And warp.

"Jordan, we're clear. Do you want to rendezvous?"

Next to me, Gaart appears as he deactivates his stealth system.

"Just a sec."

Right. Teleport jammer, big ole' construct wall, and… Hope Jordan pulls his finger out because I want to add in a spatial stabiliser construct just as soon-

A green spec appears several miles away, and then starts rapidly growing

-as possible.

"Okay." Jordan slows down as he reaches us, and I add in the stabiliser construct… Yeah, I see that battleship repositioning. "Paul, I think I'm reconsidering my position on body armour."

"Glad to hear it. Roy and I can do a fitting when we get back to Earth." I give him a once-over. "Any injuries I can't see?"

"I'll get checked out for radiation damage later. Lantern Gaart, you okay to fight?"

"Yes sir."

Jordan nods. "Good. Paul, can you build missiles with the same stealth tech as your armour?"

"Sort of. Without the magic element they won't be quite as good. And whatever propulsion system I gave it would probably have some sort of detectable emission. And their gravity shields would probably deflect a missile to a degree anyway…"

"Does NEMO have missiles with magic stealth?"

"Probably, but if so, LEGION's saving them for a major Reach target."

"Okay. That black hole gun thing you do."

"They've got gravity shields. I could probably damage them eventually-."

"Could you-? Work out the frequency of their shields if you shot them long enough?"

"The frequency?"

"Yeah."

"Of… Gravity shields?"

"Yeah. What, wrong word?"

"Didn't you.. study physics for-?"

"I'm a pilot. I studied aeronautics. You wanna talk about drag coefficients, I'm your guy. You wanna talk about black hole guns, I'll go get Atom."

"It's more likely that I'll lock them on blocking my singularity beam, which would mean that they couldn't deflect the missile. That still leaves point defences, assumes that the ships can't cover each other with their gravity shields, and that we can actually hit them."

"Got a way around that?"

"Don't use missiles. Use ballistic projectiles with warheads. With the three of us firing, we can cover enough of their potential location volume to be confident of hitting-."

"Lantern Gaart, you know how to make a railgun construct?"

"No, sir."

"That doesn't matter."

"If it's just the two of us-."

"Grand Admiral Thrawn taught me that if they can't track the projectiles, they have to assume that each observed firing is a real firing."

He frowns at the name, but he gets it. "So he just pretends to fire a bunch of times, and they'll have to evade."

"Or fire along the projectile's calculated approach vector. Depends how good they are."

"Can you shoot these things and fire the black hole gun at the same time?"

"Why would I need to? They're going to be ballistic."

"So fire them, wait until they're about to arrive and then shoot the ships?"

"Yep."

"Okay, it's a plan." He claps his hands together. "Let's get to work."

 

[Mr Zoat]

30th April 2258
19:28 G.M.T. -5

Given that I've been on a grand total of one date in my entire life, I don't think this is going too badly.

I'm rich, but I'm not super rich. And most of my money is liquid, rather than being tied up in shares or property. I do have some investments, if only to assuage revenue protection officers, but I'm working on the assumption that if the ring keeps working then I can always get more raw materials to sell. I really only need enough money to pay for top quality health insurance (and the lawyers to make sure that the insurance company provides the agreed upon service) to make sure that if I'm comatosed someone will look after my recumbent body until I recover enough to fix myself. And in case it stops for some reason, I've put enough to live on in a high interest account. But honestly, that's not as much money as you think it is.

More than I could have acquired conventionally, but.. not.. rich money. It's the Sam Vimes 'Boots' Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness. If you don't need a mortgage and don't need a huge house, it's far cheaper to buy outright. Heck, installing your own fusion reactor is cheaper than buying grid power after about eight years, if you can stand all of the checks and inspections required to get it built in the first place-.

But my point is, I'm nouveau-riche. I don't have any experience in how rich people actually live, especially when interacting with… Ah… Middle class people. I could afford to take Kelsey to a ridiculously expensive restaurant… But is that too much for a first date? Or a cheaper restaurant, but is that implying that I'm cheap? And then there's the actual entertainment; I looked, but there are very few actual cinemas left, and those show arty films. There are hologram places, but I took a look at those when I first arrived on Earth and they're… Honestly not that good. Transparent, glitchy, and they don't really mesh with the environment due to the projection equipment. Maybe I'm being a Luddite, but I prefer 2D and a normal screen.

But does she? Don't know. I asked Mayan, but she was surprised that we weren't being chaperoned by clan elders. I asked the peanut gallery-

Yes. You asked us.

-and… They tried their best.

So I rented a small cinema and found a copy of The Matrix. I don't know if it's actually a good idea, but… I just have to find out more about her. For dinner, it's a family owned and somewhat famous fast food restaurant that's high quality and characterful enough that I think it's a decent bunt.

Quick check that Mayan is in a secure location…

Working on her next piece, in a room whose walls I've reinforced enough that it would take heavy ordnance to penetrate them. Okay.

Ah.

We agreed to meet here at half past seven, and I don't think that scanning for Kelsey would be a good idea, either in terms of my increasingly implausible deniability or in terms of building a healthy relationship. But if I misunderstood and she's expecting me to pick her-

A taxi pulls up on the curb, and Kelsey steps out.

-up.

And to my relief we're dressed at about the same level of sophistication. Jeans, blouse and a light jacket for her, and tan trousers, t-shirt and shirt for me. She looks around for a moment, then raises her right hand and smiles, and… I waves and smile-. Walk up to her and say something.

You can do this.

I estimate the chance as no better than two parts in seven. / Just give us a warning before you actually start mating with this female. / I'm rooting for you. / You should get someone more fertile. You are too old to take risks with fertility.

Why do I talk to you people?

What was your alternative?

"Matthew."

"Good-. Ah, good evening-. Kelsey." Keep going. "You look-" Not lovely, she's dressing down. "-nice."

"Thank you. I wasn't sure if I was…" She looks passed me to the restaurant. "Matching the location?"

"I'm not sure either, but we match each other, so we can be wrong together."

That earns me a smiles and a brief head-duck-chuckle.

"Ah, shall we?"

We walk towards the restaurant entrance. The exterior and the surrounding seating is well-lit, and there's some sort of space heater keeping it warm. I'd make a global warming reference but I don't think she'd get it.

"How was The Nest?"

"It's… It was somewhere I hope that I don't ever have to go again. Hours in a spacesuit in an unbreathable atmosphere, meeting with individuals I haven't seen before in my nightmares because my name isn't 'Giger' or 'Lovecraft'."

"Maybe that's how they see us."

I nod. "It would explain why they hate leaving their homeworld. If anyone in the universe looked like them, I wouldn't want to leave Earth."

"But minbari are okay?"

"Sure, they're basically bald humans wearing weird hats. Whatever issues you've got with their society they don't look weird. But, to be clear, the princess was perfectly polite and helpful while I was seeing her, and saw me promptly as well, which I really appreciated."

"And they're going to.. give your friend a proper burial?"

I shake my head. "I have no idea. They're hardcore materialists. They don't believe in souls or ritual funerals. I'm not even entirely sure why he wanted his body returned there. The princess said something about experimental mind-related genes, so maybe he didn't want to risk the other hives getting a look at them?" I shrug as we enter the restaurant. "Or-."

"Maybe he was hedging his bets?"

"Heh. Yeah." But no. I know instinctively that gaim don't hedge their bets like that. "Except… Apparently, last time a gaim developed religious faith, their queen ate them."

"If your friend was dead anyway, perhaps he was prepared to risk it?"

"That would be logical, but I don't think he-." The server working the booking station looks up. "Underwood. I don't think he was being that logical. I think he just found the idea that he would in some sense be at home was.. comforting."

"This way."

The server leads us to a table which is.. against the side wall? Reasonable lines of sight but no window. We could have gotten an outside table but I thought that might be a bit chilly in April.

"But that's enough.. morbidity from me. What have you been up to?"

"Ugh." She slumps slightly, elbows on the table and head resting against her hands. "You ever get the thing at work where you're waiting for someone higher up to make a decision, and you can't really do anything until they do?"

I nod. "I think that everyone who's ever had a job has gone through that."

"And there's nothing you can do until they do it, so you're left hanging around? And I'm a highly trained professional. The company invested a lot of money in getting me to where I am, and where I am is sitting around a staffroom when I could be doing literally anything else."

"With my last employer, it was debt chasing. I had to get someone to sign off on every legal action, and they just didn't. What's holding yours up?"

"I think my boss wants more information before he makes a decision-"

I'm grimacing sympathetically. "Which you can't get-."

She nods back. "-until he makes a decision. It's ridiculous!"

We share a chuckle as the server brings over the menus. I think this is going okay.