Haru puts pork chops on the counter. "Will do."

Okay.  Stuff: packed; time to - redownload Uber.  Because he's going to be making much more than Starbucks money and it would be insane to attempt to haul this luggage across town on a bus or something when he needs to use his resilience for other things.  He should get a car, probably.  And also a different apartment.  And maybe a - there's a lot to do.  Logging in, logging in, pulling up the search results but not selecting a ride just yet - "When should we see each other next?"

"I can have Paula call you if there's a promising dungeon to experiment on but failing that, uh, day after tomorrow maybe?"

"Sounds great.  ...I hope that I won't have crazy issues about accumulating a lot of backlash on accident, but if I do I will request a hangout instead of not doing that."

"Yeah, for sure call if you need me, day after tomorrow is the 'instead of accidentally drifting out of contact for no reason' deadline."

"Right.  Cool."  Okay Uber will be here in... two minutes.  Objects heft.  "This has been... a lot.  Thanks again for making it less awful than it definitely would have been."

"I'm glad I was able to help!" Kiss goodbye?

Oh!  Yes.

"See you soon!"

"See you!"

And then the Uber.  ...Does he try and do anything productive in the Uber?  No, he thinks he doesn't, even though he has a lot to do; he should stare out the window and let the sights of the city wash over him while he thinks about nothing in particular and processes the last week.  Unless it backlashes him at all, in which case he should stop and not do that.  Hopefully he can zone out sufficiently to not have this problem.

He looks in the direction of the cars going by and attempts to cultivate uncuriosity about them but mostly ends up thinking about the sex, and also Haru more generally.  That was - really nice, and when things are that nice it's very normal to think about ways that they might get ruined, but also, Haru just dealt with him through an entire week of him being very hard to deal with, but also - hm.  He did have, just really the most valid excuse for that week.  And even though the way Haru handled it was very impressive, it doesn't mean that Julien has free rein to be maximally annoying forever.  ...But overall he's hopeful.  He's in fact really hopeful.  Even if he can't expect this to be easy and perfect forever now that he's through his awakening, he thinks he can expect them to be able to work out the issues that do come up.  They're both very incentivized to.  (But also he still definitely needs to go to esper mixers.  It's just sane.)

...That wasn't really the kind of cultivating uncuriosity he'd meant, but being very distracted by mulling over interpersonal worries does in fact mean he isn't spending attention wondering about passing ads, and he'll take that.  Might not be the best strategy long-term though.  Something to work on.

No one's in the common area when he opens the door to his apartment, but one of his housemates comes out when she hears him enter and another does after he hears them talking.  Julien excuses himself to call his mom after twenty minutes of catching up, and then - does not immediately do that.  He checks his email?  Whether he has an agent or not yet is in fact good information to bring into a mom phone call.  Stalling's not meaningfully stalling if it's useful.

Congratulations on getting through your awakening! Are you and Traceless planning to partner? Do you intend to operate under a code name? The website is correct that I have an opening. If you choose to hire me I can connect you with dungeons and hospitals. If you would like to discuss my professional background with my other clients they are linked on my Maple profile. I can ask any of them to reach out to you. Sensors are the backbone of the esper ecosystem.

Sure, he'll poke around at the other clients.

The profile lists:

- Mary Smith*, who is a medical sensor specializing in diagnostics
- Daisychain, who can get a third-person view of anybody she sees, and from there jump to anyone they see, and so on; she works dungeons
- Lidar, a dungeon mapper who can project the map information he receives in lightforms
- Owlet, an audio sensor who worked in dark dungeons but is retired now and retains an agent for things like TV appearances and merch rights
- Census, who can get a complete count of monsters and victims in a dungeon but is taking a sabbatical after "a dangerous foray into civilian applications"
- Hector Reyes (that seems to be his real name), a short range foreseer, who has moved to the Philippines as part of the revitalization effort but still retains his Canadian agent

*Pseudonyms that have the form of a normal name are not regulated in the same way as codenames.

...That's kind of a lot of people, even if some of them probably don't take up very much of the agent's time in a day.  Does Julien expect to need a lot more agent effort than the average esper, hm.

How many clients does Paula have; can he find that out in the same way?

Paula has:

- Traceless himself
- two other dungeoneers
- a former dungeoneer who now just does movies
- four professional partners who for conflict of interest reasons can't just have the same agent as their partner

Hmm.  Well, he can just ask.

Thank you.  Yes, we are, although I would still like to look for compatible backups.  I will want a code name but haven't started on picking one yet.

Since my last email, I have discovered that I can read thoughts from dungeon cores themselves and active monsters.  I believe this to be of historic importance.  I'm still in the early stages and don't have specific plans for what to do with this yet, but it seems plausible I might have higher or different support needs than a typical esper.  Is there sufficient slack in your workflow to accomodate this?

—Julien

I believe I can arrange the slack to manage this with you. My input would be sorting through dungeons that meet your parameters. I can also connect you with various institutions and services. I do not offer high level career direction.

...He can mull it over.

Deep breath.  Phoneboop.

"Hi, Julien!  How're you holding up?"

"I mean, so, pretty great honestly?  I'm not awakening anymore."

"I am so very glad to hear that you aren't awakening anymore!  Congratulations, Nuthatch."

"Thanks, Mom.  Powers so far are reading minds, which is, honestly almost the sort of thing I was worried about while I was convinced I was going to get something terrible, and also some like regular senses enhancement.  And a like, I can feel when things are coming at me."

"That does seem suiting, doesn't it."

"Yeah.  ...Also - I can read dungeons."