"Ah, okay." She was kind of hoping to have the place to herself or some kind of task to do? But that's ok! It's not Epione's job to keep Kani entertained.

She busies herself with her food; she's not supposed to be broadcasting negative emotions at Epione, and even though there isn't any backlash now it's a good thing to practice (be small, be unobtrusive, be easy to talk to...)

Epione finishes her breakfast, leaves her dishes in the sink, and gets into her scrubs for the day and waves goodbye.

Kani can put on a nice cheery smile to wave goodbye! (It helps that she is genuinely impressed with Epione - her backlash takes so much work to manage, and she still uses her power every day to help people! Kani is pretty sure she couldn't do that. It reminds her of - of...)

When Gary arrives, Kani is curled up on the bed. She doesn't respond to the noise of him entering.

Gary arrives ten minutes after Epione leaves so this is really exasperating. Does she move if he shakes her?

She'll look up at him when she hears him approaching the bed; no need to shake her. She doesn't say anything. 

(Her face is wet with tears.)

"...did you use your power?" he asks.

Headshake. 

"Okay. You let me know if you need anything, okay?"

And he will go do the dishes and stuff.

She needs her best friend to not be dead, can he do that she nods minutely before he leaves the room. 

(Eventually she passes out for a 3 hour nap).

Then Gary will have a pretty lowkey day of babysitting the esper with one of the most inconvenient blind spots of all time.

After spending several hours asleep and/or in a depressive funk, Kani manages to slink into the bathroom, freshen up, put on some (not-very-well-fitting) clothes, and make her way into the kitchen to have a bowl of chili. Eventually she builds up the courage to ask Gary the thing that's on her mind. (...via text message, of course)

...Do you know who I should ask about, um, payment and stuff? 

Epione's agent Jennifer, here's her number:

aaaa new person aaa

thanks

fretfretfretbluhghhhhhhhh

about 45 minutes later, she manages to compose and send

Hi Jennifer, this is Kanikau Plava.

Gary gave me your number and said I should ask you about payment information?

That's right! What I've done is open an account on your behalf that you can claim either under your normal name or your codename should you adopt one, whichever you like (the account is a special kind meant to enable this but once you pick one it'll be hard to change later), or close and transfer the contents to your existing accounts if you prefer, and it's got the money in it for each day, deposited every morning. If you need some spending money for something Gary's not sure his budget covers, I can pay you some of tomorrow's into another format, just let me know what processor you prefer.

aagh, details...

Sheeee doesn't know if she wants a codename. Start with that.

If I don't know if I want a codename, can I move the money to my personal account and then make an account under a codename later? or is that something I should figure out now? 

If you want to be paid into a normal account I can close this one and move the funds for you once I know the details of where it's going. You're the expert on how long you need to decide about a codename!

Kani is not the expert on that because she doesn't understand the ramifications of banking under a name that isn't hers!

She groans into a pillow and takes a deep breath.

With some fretting and a bit of conferring with her fathers to make sure there's no super big and obvious mistake being made here, she manages to send Jennifer her bank account routing info and express a preference to just be paid there for now. And also an apology for the trouble. 

No problem! That should be transferred across by EOD and I've set up future per diems to land there. If you want the itemization I can send it to your email and of course whenever you've got your own agent I can link up with them.

Sheeee would like the itemization (so she can know how much is reasonable for her to spend on some clothes that fit her better), please and thanks.

The itemization comes and has lines like this, divided into what they're paying her and what's been deducted:

Credits:
Per diem guiding services
Per diem emergency guiding availability

Debits:
Teleport (1 fare, Ablinger, Seattle -> Toronto)
1/2 silo rental
1/10 silo prep services
....Additional hours for silo prep personnel for failover backlash support
....Groceries
Taxi

Tax withholding forms attached

Gratis:
Borrowed agent services, Jennifer Mendoza
Reciprocal guiding, Epione

Huh. Kani gives it a read-through.

...Additional hours of silo prep personnel for failover backlash support?  That's Gary, but why...

Ohhhhh. Gary is here today (and stayed all day yesterday) because they want to make sure she doesn't knock herself into a coma again. It's not really about Epione's powers. And they didn't tell her because - it wasn't clear to anyone involved how backlashed she was, maybe? 

Ugggghhhhh yeah that makes sense (And also she hates her backlash! And also being babysat! Maybe tomorrow morning she can talk to Epione about this....)

....whatever. Does she have enough incoming money to be able to get some new clothes?

Oh yeah.

Awesome.

She texts Gary.

I want to go out for a few hours, mostly to go clothes shopping but probably to get some other things too. 

I don't think I'm at risk of using my power on accident and I don't think my backlash is going to cause problems, if you don't want to tag along.