xp_logs | Nathan, Angelo, Rachel, and the unluckiest woman in the world, Thursday afternoon

Nathan brings his brand-new secretary by the boathouse. It's not clear when she's more appalled by the mess that masquerades as an office, or the flying baby. While she endeavors to be productive on the organizational front, Nathan and Angelo discover that business doesn't wait for you to finish setting up the office.

"Oh my."

Nathan gave the blonde woman standing beside him his best impression of a reassuring smile. "I know. We're not quite set-up yet," he said, gesturing for her to precede him into the boathouse. "I think we're making good headway, though."

"It's... well, we can work on this," Ellen Myles said determinedly, stepping in. "It's certainly a nice large space. Plenty of room to shift things around and achieve the most efficient set-up."

Nathan gave his new secretary... administrative assistant, whatever he was supposed to be calling her, a slightly wary look when she turned away and couldn't see it. "I thought the desks were in a good arrangement already..."

"Oh, no, no, it's all wrong."

Nathan bit back a comment about Feng Shui, and Ellen yelped softly as Angelo suddenly stood up from behind one of the desks and a large, screening pile of boxes. Nathan coughed to cover a laugh. "Please tell me you're not playing hide and seek with Ray."

"Might be", Angelo answered cheerfully. "She likes it. An' it keeps her off the ceilin', Except when she figures out that's a good place to look from..."

"Off... the ceiling?" Ellen repeated dubiously, and then yelped again, this time more loudly, as Rachel floated up from behind another pile of boxes on the other side of the room, giggling and waving her hands. "... that baby's flying," she said, staring wide-eyed at Rachel.

"Yes. She, uh, does that. And her nursery is on this level, so you'll liable to see lots of her. She's learned how to open doors," Nathan said, giving his daughter a hard look. Rachel blew a raspberry at him and headed ceiling-ward, cackling.

Ellen was looking a little pale, he noticed, glancing down at her. "You'll get used to her," he said heartily. "She's really very cute." He looked back at Angelo. "Angelo, this is Ellen. Our new administrative assistant. Ellen, this is Angelo, one of our staff. He's supposed to have a new job title but I haven't come up with one yet."

"Come down, Ray", Angelo called hopefully, holding his arms up to the baby, then looked back at the secretary. "Hi. Like he said, I'm Angelo. Used to be a student here an' I just never left."

"Nice to meet you," Ellen said, still staring at Rachel. "I... uh, where should I start?" she asked, tearing her attention away from the baby and turning to Nathan.

"We've been doing the whole pick-a-box thing," Nathan suggested, and frowned a little as Ellen immediately shook her head.

"No, that's actually counterproductive," she said, rallying with impressive speed. Perhaps she'd just decided to ignore the baby crawling on the ceiling. "The key is to get the workspaces organized first, and work from there. Then you have something to build around."

Well, that made sense, he supposed. "Then pick a desk?" Nathan suggested. "Yours, maybe?" He indicated the fifth desk, the one closest to the door.

"Yes. I'll do that," Ellen said, nodding decisively, and then sneaking a look at Rachel before she headed in that direction.

Nathan raised an eyebrow, and then started to make his way through the box-maze over to where Angelo was waving hopefully at Rachel. #She's wibbly,# he sent. #I don't like her.#

#She just got here#, Angelo returned, amused, as Rachel finally deigned to come down. #Give her a chance to get used to stuff.#

Rachel snuggled into his arms, and Nathan rolled his eyes. "My computer working?" he asked aloud, kissing the top of the baby's head. "We should see if Rollins emailed back about that conference or not."

"Yeah, I got the computers set up an hour ago", Angelo answered, prodding Rachel in the side to make her giggle.

Ellen was already determinedly pulling boxes off her desk. Nathan ignored her and went over to his, sitting down and holding Rachel on his lap with one arm. "Now," he said, reaching out with the other to use the keyboard, "no helping Dad check his email. I'm still not sure how you managed to freeze the laptop the other night."

"Heeheee!"

"Rollins suggested to me that I send you to this conference, actually," Nathan said, looking up at Angelo. "Feel like a trip to Moscow?"

"When did I ever turn down travel?" he answered with a broad grin. "Never been to Russia on my own."

"He thinks we need to keep the former Soviet republics high on our list of priorities when it comes to places to watch. Which makes perfect sense to me," Nathan said, bringing up his email program. "I was planning to do that anyway."

Angelo nodded, amusing himself by trying to tempt Rachel over to him. "Yeah. I'll go, then."

Rachel was snickering and wriggling, but didn't show any signs of wanting to leviate off his lap. Nathan, smiling, kissed the top of her head again and then raised an eyebrow at the list of new emails. "Huh... something from someone I don't know, here..."

Angelo glanced up at that, interested. "Yeah? What is it?"

"Jorge Borgran...? I don't know that name," Nathan said, more sure of himself as he searched his memory. "He's an activist in Managua... a mutant activist," he amended, and then frowned as he skimmed the email. "Huh. This doesn't sound promising."

"Not promisin' how?" Angelo asked, worried, getting up to come over and have a look.

"There's a pretty healthy population of homeless kids on the streets in Managua," Nathan said, rereading the email as he talked. Rachel waved her hands, grunting. "Like there is in most large cities in Latin America. But apparently the mutant kids are being rounded up and housed in jail. As threats to public safety."

"....they're doin' what?" came the answer after a moment's stunned silence.

Nathan looked up, his expression a little bleak. "Actually, this is not nearly as horrific as you think. They could doing a lot worse." At least they weren't gunning them down in the streets. He didn't say that, though. Angelo looked appalled enough.

"Well, yeah, but... it's a pretty worryin' start."

Nathan rubbed at the back of his neck with his free hand. "We need more information," he muttered, and keys started pressing themselves as he used his TK to type a reply. Rachel yawned and leaned back against him, and he smiled down at her reassuringly. "Nap, munchkin?"

"Mmmph."

"I've got a few contacts in Nicaragua, but they're mostly in outlying areas, not the capital city," Nathan went on. "They probably won't be helpful for this."

"Another fact-findin' trip, then?"

"No, actually, a lot of fact-finding emails and phone calls," Nathan said with a grin. "Don't jump the gun just because you're excited at the idea of going somewhere you speak the language fluently."

Angelo eyed him. "That just means we'll be goin' there later."

"Been a while since I've been to Nicaragua. The last time, I blew up an oil refinery," Nathan said cheerfully. Rachel giggled. Ellen, over by her desk, squeaked.

"Nathan, you're scarin' the secretary", came the deadpan response.

Rachel made a noise that was halfway between a sigh and a raspberry and sounded like nothing so much as a nine month old's best impression of an explosion.