Phyllis Constance Yates folds her arms. "I think you're coming from a place of fundamental misunderstanding of what's going on here."

"Oh, yes, I have never had a choice, I have to listen to you and do whatever you say or no banana?"

"I'm not offering bananas. All that's on the table here is your ability to represent the Protectorate in a public setting without damaging assorted delicate operations about which you have no understanding."

"You keep saying I have no understanding of this and that, but this is not pertinent information unless you actually either offer me this understanding or point to a place where I can get it."

"You don't need to understand it personally to acknowledge others' expertise. How you've made it to seventeen without learning that I have no idea."

"No, but I do need to understand it personally before I'm willing to help. I am perfectly capable of letting Sphere build his space colonies, but if he wants my help he will actually have to explain to me what he's doing and how I'm helping."

"Well, then, it seems we're at an impasse. Come back when you're ready to compromise." She waves with a nicely-manicured hand.

"You mean bend. You know, if you had spent half the time we did discussing actually explaining the things I asked, you could probably have convinced me already."

"Wouldn't it be nice if that were true. Shoo." Wave wave.

In her workshop!

Knock knock!

A bot emerges from what appears to be a cat-door installed in the workshop door. "Can I help you?" it asks.

"Is Lorica terribly busy, I need to commiserate."

"Mid-fugue, estimated twenty minutes until her next break and if she breezes past it an hour and a half until I make her take one."

"I will wait twenty minutes, will you tell me if she does take a break?"

"Sure." The robot sits on them.

And they sit cross-legged on nothing, and wait.

Twenty-three minutes later, the robot says, "She's having breakfast now and won't mind if you come in to talk to her."

They come in.

Lorica's eating a food-truck crepe that it seems moderately likely she sent a robot to fetch for her, based on the open window and robot-feet-sized dents in the bag. "Morning," she mumbles around crepe.

"Boots dislocated her shoulder once. You don't keep her job for long if you're scared of parahumans."

They make a long high-pitched noise that kinda sounds like a tea kettle.

"What happened?"