xp_logs | Artie and Kevin: Training. Of a sort.

"In the CIA, we drunk booze out of everything! Lampshades, shoes, Hungarians! This was the Cold War, motherfuckers!"

"Yeah, but you didn't have smart phones and people were allowed to smoke indoors."

"Yes! All good reasons that it was better. We could also eat all the red meat and butter without someone trying to argue with us about our colons!"

"Oh my god you are legit an alien."

"I was born in Chicago. Of course I'm bizarre. By the way, kid, stop flicking that tongue at me."

"Hssss" and then, visually, Artie added "I was born in Chicago too! And yet..."

"... I'm here to help train you to be a better operative. It involves a lot of drinks. So, mix us a couple of scotch and sodas and we can get down to business."

"I don't like scotch. How about i have a vodka and raspberry instead?"

Kevin grinned. "Alright kid. Pour your poison. Tell me... you're going to have to work in every kind of world. Can you handle it?"

"Can I handle it? I handled Genosha. I used to be a Morlock. I've been chased by dinosaurs. I've been doing this for years and you want to know if I can handle it?"

"You think you've seen it all? Let me tell you something, son. This world is designed to grind you up and piss on the remains. It doesn't matter what you survived. It matters how and why you survived it."

"Meaning what, exactly?"

"Meaning that everything you've handled is a fucking preview. Let me tell you from personal experience, the day you think you've seen it all is the day the world proves you wrong. So, think about the shit you've done. Now triple it. At least. You sure you still want to do this?"

"A scarier man than you asked me that years ago. I'm in. This world is fucked and I'm in for the duration."

"Good lad. Now." Kevin slid a glass over to him. "Learn to drink something fucking proper, my son. It is as effective as any kind of cover."

"I love that you assume that I can't drink something proper, rather than simply that I don't want to." Artie drained the glass.

"The fact you don't want to is the issue. Love proper drinks. It gives you an advantage."

"Maybe in 1927 when you were a kid and being a lookout at a speakeasy but things are different now."

"Don't try to teach your grandmother to suck eggs, son. The fact is that half of Asia are trying to drink like Manhattan in the 60s these days."

"Do you even know how racist you sound?"

"Sure. Doesn't mean it is any less true." He leaned back. "Hard drinkers who now have enough domestic scotch, gin and bourbon distilleries to make drinking the classics affordable to the masses. Which means if you're trying to flip a middle manager of a semi-private chip maker in Hangzhou, you'd better know not to bring a bottle of huangjiu to impress him."

Artie laughed, bitter and silent. "You can be old school Bond all you want, but you and I both know that I'll never be the one talking to him, because he'll expect words, not this." A gesture at the floating text.

"I don't know that and neither do you. The funny thing about this world, kid, is that my experience is that anything can, and has, happened." Kevin contemplated the liquid in his glass, turning it slowly. "That's why you need training across the spectrum because, you're right, you may never run into a specific circumstance... but if the impossible happens and you do, I want you to be ready to handle it. It's the reason why the cooks and the air traffic controllers and the janitors for the staff mess still need to go through basic training. You just never know."

"I'll take your word for it".

"You'll do more than that. Because if you get killed in the field, and believe me, you can do everything right and that happens. But if it doesn't it won't be because of a lack of training." He motioned with his glass. "Now drink up and we can talk about your new... courses."