xp_logs | Nathan and Angelo, Sunday

Nathan and Angelo meet with the electronics supplier to arrange for the necessary gear for the new offices and Elpis's field personnel. After, they head to the mall for lunch and a bit of a break, and have one of those rambling conversations that touches on Elpis, Amanda, and why buying cat toys for your nine month-old daughter is maybe not such a good idea.

"Did I tell you I had a new credit card?" Nathan volunteered suddenly as Angelo drove them into the parking lot of the plaza where the electronics supplier was located. There was the faintest glimmer of mischief in his eyes as Angelo glanced sideways at him. "It's platinum. When my grumpy old bastard of a financial advisor took me to the bank to make various arrangements, they practically forced it on me."

Angelo grinned. "Now that sounds like fun. What'd the financial advisor have to say about it?"

"That it was a very good thing to have a credit card for purchases like the ones we're going to make today, because 'carrying around large amounts of cash might have been acceptable in your former occupation, Mr. Morrow, but a man in your current position has certain standards that must be maintained'. I swear, he think I didn't know what a bank was and buried all my ill-gotten gains on a remote mountaintop somewhere." Nathan's grin was positively evil. "One of these days I'm going to explain to him that I'm actually not half-bad at financial games. I had to hide all that money I stole from Mistra somewhere."

"...are you addin' it in to this?" Angelo asked curiously. "I mean, how much of it was there?"

Nathan gave him an amused look. "You want to know the exact figure?"

"Ballpark'll do." He grinned.

"Two million dollars or thereabouts. Peanuts by Moira's standards - or by mine now, I suppose, but a pretty hefty chunk of change at the time. I still have some of it," Nathan said more thoughtfully, "and it got a lot bigger with interest over the ten years, but I divided it up between my former colleagues, last year. Just to give them something to fall back on if need be."

Angelo nodded. "Sounds fair enough. An' yeah, you should mention it to him." Angelo had not taken a great liking to the financial advisor.

"Grand grand larceny from the government. That should nicely solidify his bad opinion of me." Not that Nathan cared one way or the other. Simpkins was competent and utterly honest - he'd been bad and scanned, but after Cain's experience he'd thought it was warranted - and that was all that really mattered. Nathan laughed. "You should have seen his face at even a nicely euphemistic description of my previous career."

"That branch of the government deserved it, though", Angelo said with a shrug as they walked towards the store. "Don't think anyone'd argue with that if they knew what they were talkin' about."

"I keep expecting someone from the taskforce to call one day and bring it up. Although I suppose if they haven't bothered, after a year, they're probably going to just let it go." There was someone at the door, waiting for them; of course, given that he'd called ahead and already discussed what he had in mind with one of the customers. It was going to be a substantial purchase, and a little above-and-beyond in terms of customer service was only to be expected.

It was a woman, blonde and green-eyed, perhaps in her early thirties. "Mr. Morrow?" she asked as she opened the door, her eyes flickering over the cane he was still using before she gestured gracefully for him to precede her into the store. "I'm Blaine Pederson - you spoke to my brother Marcus on the phone? I'm sorry that he's not here. Small emergency at home, so he asked me to come in this morning and look after you."

Nathan shook his head, smiling at the apologetic look she was giving him. "Quite all right," he said as he stepped into the store. Ah-hah! Chair! He headed in that direction quite unashamedly. "This is Angelo Espinosa," he said.

Blaine smiled at Angelo, a smile that somehow managed to be friendly and professional at the same time. "Hi. Can I get either of you some coffee before we get started?" she asked, letting the door closed.

"That would be much appreciated."

"I never turn down coffee", Angelo agreed, returning a similar smile.

"Thanks for agreeing to meet us on Sunday morning," Nathan said as Blaine quickly and efficiently produced three cups of rather nice-smelling coffee. "I know this is outside your regular business hours."

"We're flexible," she said with another one of those easy smiles. "Especially for such a large order. "Besides, getting this done promptly means that we can get your equipment into production first thing tomorrow, too."

Angelo was drinking his very good coffee with some appreciation, but looked up at that. "That soon?"

"Your boss knows his stuff," Blaine said almost playfully. "Most of the time when we deal with orders like this, we have to talk the customer through precisely what they want. Very often they don't really know what they want, or what's within our ability to give them." She opened up a black leather folder. "But we've got some fairly precise design specifications here."

"I'm fairly sure there was a compliment in there somewhere," Nathan said in amusement, sipping at what was indeed very good coffee. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. The longest delay, I think, will be in shipping the other half of the system to Tel Aviv."

"That makes sense. When should we tell the Tel Aviv office to expect their half?"

"Well, let's see... about a week to fabricate, given that you've said you're willing to pay the surcharge for a rush job-" Blaine stopped suddenly, looking up. "Rush only in that it'll be put to the top of our priority list," she reassured him suddenly.

"Oh, of course."

"Two days, maybe, for shipping to Israel? And it's likely to be held up in customs for at least a day or two after that."

"Two weeks or so, then." He nodded. "I think that's fine, right, Nathan?"

"Perfect, actually. Hopefully by then they'll have the new office set up and ready for it." He smiled briefly at Blaine. "Like I mentioned to your brother, we really are starting from the ground up. We only bought the office two days ago."

"Marcus told me a little about it. It all sounds very exciting," Blaine said - and then laughed suddenly, giving the collar of the turtleneck she was wearing a tug downwards.

Beneath, as she turned her head to the left, was what was unmistakably a gill. "I'm guessing that since you came to us," she said, still smiling as she pulled the collar back into place, "that there was a reason. We're not the only electronics supplier in town."

"Mmm. Someone whose last name begins with an X may have mentioned your name to me, yes..."

Angelo blinked, shooting Nathan a sideways look, then grinned. "Well, I'm pretty glad we did. Don't think anyone else could have done better."

"I'd offer you a discount," Blaine said, "but something tells me you wouldn't take it."

"No," Nathan said firmly, although he was still smiling. "I wouldn't. First and foremost because I don't need it, but there's also the principle of the thing. If you're feeling inspired, though, any suggestions you have for a good reliable way for my people out in the field to keep in touch with the office would be welcome. Given that they'll be in places sorely lacking in cell phone towers."

"Sat phones," Blaine said promptly, "and sat modems. We happen to have a very good line of them, as well."

Angelo brightened noticeably at that, looking to Nathan. "Can I have a sat phone?"

"You can have it monogrammed, if you want," Nathan said with a perfectly straight face.

Blaine coughed to hide a laugh, then picked up her own coffee in one hand and a pen in the other, quickly jotting down some figures and details on the paperwork. "These are easy - no fabrication time required."

Angelo grinned happily. "So we can get those... when?"

"The phones I can have delivered locally in two days, and to Israel by the end of the week. Modems I'll need to order in - how many of each?"

"Let's say twenty." Enough for everyone plus a few spares, Nathan thought. "Actually, while we're on the subject of additional equipment... can you get your hands on any of those Itronix laptops?"

"Oh, the GoBook MAX," Blaine said, looking admiring in the way only a tech-geek could while contemplating a piece of particularly admirable equipment. "You know, they say that when they test them, they drop them fifty-four times from one meter, bake it in an oven, chill it in a freezer, vibrate it, and then douse it with water?"

"....let's get those." He grinned crookedly at Nathan. "We're gonna need hardy ones like that, for the field work."

Blaine scrawled down a few more notations. "Easily enough. Although, they do have a new line of tablet PCs, too..."

"Twenty of the laptops, and throw in a tablet so that I can play with it and see if it's preferable," Nathan said.

"I should have those at about the same time I have the sat modems," Blaine said, still scrawling. "Probably the fewer shipments we have to make, the better. For efficiency's sake."

"You won't get any argument out of me," Nathan said with a nod, trying to think of there was anything else he was missing. He hadn't intended to order the additional equipment right away, but he'd gotten thinking on the way over. Plus the Pedersons seemed like they had their act together in general, plus a little personal motivation for doing a good job... it seemed like a logical step, really. "I think that's probably it," he said, after another moment. "Unless you can think of anything I'm forgetting, Angelo?"

"Nah, I think that covers it", he said with another smile at Blaine. "For now, anyway."

Blaine pulled out another piece of paper and started totalling figures with one hand, while she extended the one she'd been working on to Nathan. "Just let me know what you want shipped to which address," she said, and Nathan took a pen off the desk and proceeded to do so.

"The new card's going to get a workout," he quipped, giving Angelo a quick grin.

"Well, that's what it's for." He grinned back.

---

"Let's not head back to the mansion just yet," Nathan said as Angelo drove back out of the parking lot. "I'm on the injured list, so I might as well enjoy being out of the tension for a bit. And you could use a break, too - you've been working stupidly long hours this week again."

"Comes with settin' this kind of thing up, I guess", he answered, turning the car. "But I won't say no to a break."

"Why not head to the mall? We can grab some lunch, I can spoil the munchkin..." His leg was probably up for a little more walking around.

"Are we goin' home to get her first after all, then? Or bringin' somethin' back for her?"

"The latter. I don't think I'm up to ensuring she doesn't start floating around the mall, and the last time she did that we caused something of a stir." Of course, the stir had been surprisingly positive. Apparently mutants weren't quite so scary when they were adorable and not yet a year old.

"To the mall it is, then." He grinned and kept an eye out for the right turning.

"We're slowly getting that to-do list done," Nathan said as they drove. Traffic was light, not unexpectedly. "Moving through it faster than I thought, actually. Although I have more meetings this week, and a lot more paperwork that needs signing..."

"Paperwork." He pulled a face. "Is it all stuff you have to do, or which bits can I take over?"

"The latter, sadly. Trust me, I'd be inflicting carpal tunnel on you if it was an option." He eyed Angelo for a moment, thoughtfully. "I'm having lunch with Amanda this week in New York."

Angelo flicked a glance at him before looking back at the road. "Yeah, I heard she was in town. Mom wants me to take her back there for lunch sometime."

Yes, that was about as blase a response as he'd expected. Angelo was terribly predictable, yet terribly diplomatic at the same time. It was a funny sort of balance, really. "You sound unsurprised," he said with a slight smile.

He shrugged slightly, turning the car. "She e-mailed me about it. An' chances were she'd wind up back in New York sooner or later, since she's in the States."

"We'd been emailing back and forth a little, for the last few weeks..." Had it been that long? Nathan blinked, wondering why so much of the last month or two was a blur. Oh, right.

Angelo nodded. "So where're you goin'?"

"I just picked a cafe close to the UN. I'm meeting with Rollins in the morning to see if he'll sign on. Charles is fairly sure he will." Joel Rollins had held a senior position with the UNHCR before moving on to sit on several successive NGO boards. Apparently he hadn't found the right fit just yet, according to Charles.

"Sounds nice", he said with a slight smile. "Sounds like she's doin' really well, too."

"Well, nice is maybe not the word about the meeting with Rollins. I need to impress this man, make sure he knows I'm not just a dilettante. He's got decades of experience in what we've been doing for less than a year."

"I meant the cafe", Angelo said with a grin. "Rollins, though... need your PA or whatever we're callin' me now along?"

"No, I think this one needs to be just him and me, this first time. I'll introduce the two of you once I've got a yes from him." Nathan saw the mall coming up on their left. "The cafe should be nice, yes," he said almost absently. "Amanda and I have a lot to talk about."

"That.... would be a really big understatement", Angelo observed dryly, pulling up outside the mall.

"Don't hold back," Nathan said just as wryly as he opened his door and got out, wincing a bit as his leg protested. "Tell me what you really think."

Angelo eyed him, a little uncertain. "I think it's good the two of you are meetin' up. Stuff happened, but... she's doin' so much better. Has been since New Orleans."

"I'd guessed that. Based on her emails and what I'd heard from Moira." The mall was just opening up for the day, and Nathan took a deep breath, relieved by the lack of crowds. "So what should I get the munchkin?" he asked, deliberately changing the subject. Angelo seemed a little uncomfortable.

"A new harness?" he suggested lightly, relieved. "Or maybe some kind of toy she can bat around while she's flyin'..."

"I suggested we buy some of those cat toys for her. Moira wasn't particularly impressed by my sense of humor."